


Ikebana

by reitoei



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bondage, Breathplay, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Gunplay, M/M, Somnophilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-19 05:09:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 36,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3597540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reitoei/pseuds/reitoei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will works for the FBI; Hannibal owns a flower shop.</p><p>Recently released from the hospital, Will is trying to piece himself back together. When he's assigned to protect Federal witness and one-time psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter and finds himself entangled in a multiple homicide case instead, Will comes to see that his nasty compulsion to see into the minds of murderers has yet to leave its most lasting scars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Will stops outside the town and pulls over to the side of the road to stretch his legs; to centre himself and check his wristwatch; to recite under his breath, “My name is Will Graham…” like a trite daytime prayer. Though it’s been six months since he left the hospital he still feels ethereal some days. Like he is his own ghost.

The case file tells him that the job should be easy. It’s a routine witness protection gig. But Hannibal Lecter is not what Will expected: he is tall and gives the impression of thinness by his gaunt face, though soft around the middle as any sedentary middle-aged man. He moves with grace and precision, like a wading bird hunting for fish in the shallows. His handshake is strong.

Will finds that he cannot look Dr Lecter in the eye. His face has some discomforting quality the nature of which eludes Will, and he is unsettled.

“It says here you’re a florist,” says Will when he has at last avoided the pleasantries which Hannibal tosses at him like lures. “Jack Crawford tells me you’re a psychiatrist.”

He narrows in on the only discrepancy in the file out of damnable habit—Jack’s training has him looking for clues where no mystery exists. Dr Lecter sips his coffee and his voice when he answers is inscrutable.

“Jack has long refused to accept my retirement,” he says. “In fact, he still implores me to take a patient from time to time. However my own psychiatrist suggested I leave the business, and she is a wise woman, so here I am.”

“I didn’t realise psychiatrists had psychiatrists,” says Will with wry amusement.

“Naturally,” Dr Lecter replies. “One needs to be grounded when delving into other peoples’ madness. Go too deep and you will be of no help to anyone.”

Will smiles at that, a sharp, short, baring of teeth. He imagines psychiatry has many similarities to his own work. “I know what that’s like.”

“Yes, Jack told me about Garett Hobbs and Abel Gideon,” says Dr Lecter. “Perhaps he felt it polite to inform me of your neuroses, as we will be spending a great deal of time together. Quite frankly I am surprised you have been cleared for duty so soon after such an extreme trauma.”

“Jack takes great liberties with his words,” Will says. And he adds, “I was ill, not neurotic.”

“And yet Jack does not seem entirely convinced of your mental stability,” Dr Lecter points out. “Nor indeed of my retirement. I would say we have been set up, but I do not know him to around the bush in that manner.”

Will has not remained ignorant of Jack’s meddling. It was clear when he called that Will’s field assignment was at his request. He has suspected for some time that Jack expects him to return to the BSU—as if his desk reassignment is only a temporary vacation. It rankles him. He made a conscious choice to leave the unit and the accompanying fieldwork. After the last year he expected Jack to respect his choice.

“I have a legitimate job to do here, Dr Lecter,” he says. “Whatever Jack’s plans, they can wait. I’ll need your daily schedule, please. I would like to identify the times and places in which you could be in danger.”

“Does the FBI truly believe I need a bodyguard?” Dr Lecter inquires blandly as he jots down his schedule on Will’s notepad. He writes in elegant cursive where Will’s notes are scrawled across the page with angular disregard for the usual curves of letters.

“I wouldn’t be here if they didn’t,” Will responds, more sharply than is polite. He knows Dr Lecter is needling him, looking for weaknesses, but it seems to be a reflex of psychiatrists so he holds his tongue. “As the key witness you are an invaluable asset to the case, and if nothing else the FBI protects its assets.”

Dr Lecter’s gaze on him is almost tangible; Will avoids it diligently. “Are you normally so candid with the civilians in your care?”

“If you know Jack then you know all the FBI’s platitudes.” The truth is that he’s not given to pleasantries, and for the most part his colleagues find him uncomfortably blunt, but Dr Lecter seems like a man who appreciates directness. “There’s no reason to pretend I’m not here to cover the bureau’s ass.”

Dr Lecter smiles at that, a disarming expression which seems nonetheless at home on his strange face. “You’re a straightforward man. I like that.”

 

Will wakes the next morning from a dream he hasn’t had since leaving the hospital. He stands in the woods and holds her to him with a strength born of madness. Abigail doesn’t have a chance. He raises the knife with a trembling hand and whispers into the delicate shell of her ear, “See?”

The blade jerks across her throat, dragging his hand behind, bisecting her pale skin—it’s not enough. Abigail’s breathy scream becomes the shriek of the kettle below.

Will hangs the sheets over the foot of the bed so they’ll dry. He showers in the guest bathroom and is dressed before he realises it’s only half past six. Dr Lecter is an early riser.

Hannibal Lecter’s house has the same air of polished masculinity as the man himself. The floors and spiral staircase are dark hardwood and the walls of the hallways a complimentary warm burgundy. Will’s room is large and luxurious but his bedsheets are red, which unsettles him more than a little. It occurs to him that this is Dr Lecter’s intention, but he dismisses this as paranoid fancy.

The living room sits empty but Will follows his nose to Dr Lecter’s spacious kitchen where the man stands at his stove with his back turned, his shoulders moving as if in time to a symphony only he can hear. Will is struck by the surety of his movement. Dr Lecter turns as he enters, alerted to his presence by nothing Will can sense except perhaps the intimate knowledge a person has of his own house and its particular air currents.

“Good morning, Will.” Hannibal avails himself of Will’s name as if they hadn’t just met yesterday. “I hope the noise didn’t wake you.”

“Yes, but it’s fine.”

Hannibal gestures for him to sit at the bar. “Do you have any dietary restrictions?”

Will shakes his head. “I’m not much of a breakfast person, though,” he says.

“Indulge me this once.” It’s not a question. “Coffee?”

“Please.” Will accepts coffee gratefully. He adds cream and sugar, aware that he is probably ruining an exquisite blend. Hannibal smiles when he voices this thought and pours a measure of cream into his own cup.

“There is nothing wrong with making concessions to personal taste. For example, although the traditional breakfast sausage is made with pork, I prefer lamb with rosemary for a more robust flavour. They are a nice complement to rye toast.”

“Do you cook often?” Will asks, interested in spite of himself.

“I prepare everything I eat,” Hannibal replies. “It is one of my great pleasures in life, to know precisely what I put in my body. Do you cook, Will?”

“Most of my meals come from the freezer,” Will admits. He can cook a little but it’s never a priority. Food rarely appeals to him beyond satisfying an immediate hunger. Some food has memories associated with it—his mother’s casserole, a fish buried in the coals and a can of beans shared between father and son as a balm to their unwieldy relationship—but most meals are emotionally bland.

Will finds his stomach grumbling when Hannibal sets the fragrant sausages out on the bar, followed by a plate of creamy eggs. He sits stiffly while Hannibal serves them both and he eats automatically. The food registers as complex, fine, better than his usual fare, but his mind is preoccupied with the day ahead. He finishes only half his plate. Hannibal clears the food away without comment.

 

When they arrive at the flower shop there are already three orders waiting on the answering machine. Hannibal jots them down while Will sets up in the back. He clears a table of decorative papers of assorted weights and patterns, sweeping them to one side, and spreads himself out in preparation for a long, boring day of paperwork and surveillance. There’s a reason this is to be his first official assignment since he left the hospital; there’s not much action to be had. He is both relieved and disappointed.

“I hope this is adequate,” Hannibal says from the doorway. He ties an apron around his waist and twists it around. The starched white cotton looks like a chef’s apron on him, too pristine to be a florist’s. Will wonders if he arranges bouquets with the same grace and purpose.

“This is good,” Will says. “This is a luxury compared with some of the places I’ve been crammed into.”

“You’ve guarded many witnesses as a member of the Behavioural Sciences Unit?” Hannibal inquires, and Will frowns.

“I was an ordinary field agent before Jack Crawford recruited me, so yes, I have watched my fair share of federal witnesses.”

“Yet here you are, no longer an ordinary agent, still playing guard dog.” Hannibal’s gaze roams across the table and a wrinkle of displeasure forms at the corner of his mouth. He straightens the papers, his movements casual but his carriage stiff.

Will bristles. “Although it was Jack who contacted you, I no longer work for the BSU. I am, as you say, the Bureau’s dog. I go where they need me.”

Hannibal smoothes his expression. “I apologise. That was out of line.”

“Have I done something to offend you, Dr Lecter?” Will asks. Hannibal sets the sheaf of paper down.

“I am a man of habit,” he admits. “I am unaccustomed to disruptions in my routine, and I suppose I have been unfairly taking it out on you. If I were not so solitary these days, my friends and colleagues would scold me.”

Will nods, taken aback by his candid response. Federal witnesses are often scared for their safety, and fear makes people act out—he’s not unused to hostile company. He had begun to expect no less from Hannibal, albeit with a side of aloofness common among the casually wealthy.

“Apology accepted,” he says finally. “I am happy to make myself as scarce as possible. I take no pleasure in infringing upon your personal and professional life.”

“Then let us both be on our best behaviour,” Hannibal says, tilting his head in acknowledgement.

Around three in the afternoon he ascertains that Hannibal will be safe enough for fifteen minutes if he leaves to grab lunch. As always, guard duty is painfully slow and Will find himself working his imagination into a frenzy as he reads and rereads the case file. Now as he stands and stretches and rubs away the hours from his eyes the images stay with him like persistent ghosts. He knows the gripping, gnawing fear before the murder and the intimate closeness of his hand over his young daughter's mouth as he suffocates her; he can see her eyes go dark.

Will hasn't been to a crime scene since he left the hospital. He's not sure he knows how to stand inside the tape and look down at the body and not be the killer—appallingly, violently, not himself—something he's expressed with vehemence to his current supervisor. He himself had been surprised the FBI cleared him for duty, and further surprised that he had been assigned this case. He knows, however, that Jack's hastily divulged intel on Dr Lecter was not idle gossip or an excuse to catch up, but rather because Jack had a hand in his assignation. It's troubling that Alana's psychiatric report has not convinced the Bureau to keep him tied to the desk. He does not feel like a man ready to return to his battle post.

As Will returns to the shop a young man brushes by him. It is only thanks to years of necessary paranoia that Will even gives him a second glance. He catches a glimpse of the youth's face under his hood; dark eyes and a stormy countenance. He frowns and scans the shop, but Hannibal stands behind the counter arranging a bouquet and looking unbothered.

"Kid buying flowers for his mother?" Will thumbs over his shoulder.

"He was making arrangements for the family of the deceased," Hannibal replies. He gives Will barely a cursory glance, his focus absolute. Or perhaps, Will thinks as he tears the cellophane off his corner store sandwich, he just doesn't rate a second look from Dr Lecter.

He gets someone to send him profiles of the Kurosawa family. Hannibal isn't restricted from talking to anyone, but Will's job would be easier if he was. What he can do is figure out who might want to silence Hannibal as a witness and who is neutral. It's a big family, but he spots his mark after five profiles: Hiroshi, youngest son of the family's kingpin. Hiroshi and the accused, Abe, are thirteen years apart, half brothers from different marriages.

Hannibal is occupied with a customer when Will approaches him, but both of them turn as he comes to stand in the doorway between the front and back sections of the shop. The woman gives Will a narrow look.

"Can I speak with you?" Will asks.

"I will come to the back when I'm done here," Hannibal tells him. "Is it urgent?"

"It's important."

Will retreats to his station. From his position he can just see Hannibal at the far end of the counter, where he is wrapping a squarish package in plain kraft paper. He ties it with a length of twine and hands it to the woman. She tucks it into her purse and places a bouquet of delicate white and yellow flowers in the crook of her arm. She and Hannibal exchange a few more words.

Will turns his attention back to his computer, feeling voyeuristic. He frowns at the screen until Hannibal enters.

"Are you comfortable?" Hannibal inquires.

"Yes, fine, thank you," says Will impatiently. "The young man who came in earlier was Higoto Kurosawa's son. You should limit any contact you have with the family until this trial is over."

"He came to ask if I would do arrangements for Michiko's funeral. I would not turn him away," Hannibal says.

"They are a powerful, tight knit family," Will replies. "We have every reason to believe they don't want this to go to trial. Just be careful."

"That's what I have you for," Hannibal replies. He sits down across from Will, looking with interest at the case file spread out over the table. He begins to rifle through the pages as he speaks and Will is about to stop him when he realises Hannibal is trying to make his intrusion seem casual, which means of course that he is doing it with purpose. He's looking for something.

"I've known Noriko's husband and his family for a long time," he continues. "They've never been anything but welcoming."

"That is the nature of these kinds of people, Dr Lecter. They are benevolent right up until you pose a threat to their carefully engineered power structure. Then they will turn on you like wolves."

"Hmm." Hannibal looks up at him. "Do you speak from experience?"

Will lets out a startled laugh. In person he doesn't factor into the dealings of wolves—people are straightforward about what they want from him because he doesn't respond to anything else. But in his mind he can see a hundred individuals culled from cultivated herds of admirers, followers of psychopaths and all other charming  people who end up murderers. As is almost inevitable he has imagined himself killing them, each and every one.

"Yes," he says, "I guess I do."

\--

The foyer is unlit when Hannibal calls on her, indicating either that she does not know of his coming or that she does not want to announce his presence. He finds her in her spacious sitting room where she stands facing the large window, her back to him. She gives no sign that she heard him enter. In the dim light her skin is the creamy yellow of old bones; her furniture, similarly coloured, surges up around her under shrouds of plastic sheeting. Hannibal isn't surprised to see that she's preparing to move already. It's barely been a week, but she has no reason to stay.

As he steps forward the rustle of the stiff vinyl coat betrays his presence into the still air. Noriko takes a sharp breath, by which he understands she did not expect him, but she acknowledges him no further. She is too controlled to turn and confirm who it is.

"Call off your dog, Noriko," he says. "I am disappointed. I didn't expect these tactics from you."

He lifts the phone from its cradle and comes to her side. She doesn't look at him, perhaps to maintain the illusion of friendship. She takes the phone and places a call, her quick Japanese punctuating the stifled air. Soon she lowers the phone from her ear.

"It is done," she says. "Are you here to kill me?"

"As you say," Hannibal acknowledges. She sounds unafraid. He suspects she would have killed herself had he not come; perhaps not tonight, but eventually, when the magnitude of her loss had sunk in.

"Will you do me a favour?" she asks as he closed the gap between them. "Will you make it quick?"

He brings her down with a swift blow to the back of the head and she crumples like discarded paper, another page in the book Hannibal writes. He lifts her up arranges her carefully.

She has just begun to wake when he makes the first cut. Her screams are quickly cut off.

"I'm afraid I must make an example of you," Hannibal tells her as he works, although she's not in a state of mind to hear him, nor will it matter very soon. "You must understand how dangerous it would be for me to let you go unpunished after you threatened me as you did."

The rest of the surgery is swift and bloody. Her eyes bulge in horror and her limbs jerk from time to time as he butchers her with efficiency. When Hannibal is done he steps back to observe his handiwork. She lies still now, not dead but weak from shock and loss of blood. Looking down at her ruined form he feels a pang of loss for the friendship they had. No matter now. Friendship does not come easily to him, but it is a sacrifice he does not balk at.

He bends over her once more to make the final cut.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Will’s phone wakes him and he gropes for it automatically before he has fully left the dream. He senses that the dream was important in the way that those seeking escape often do, especially as the cold light of morning comes rushing in to wash away the amniotic fluid of his unconscious mind.

“Graham,” he croaks.

A rush of noise greets him. “Will,” Jack says. “There have been some developments in the case.”

“What case?” Will is temporarily displaced.

“Yours.” Jack sounds sour.

“The witness protection? How?” Will pushes himself upright. “Why are you telling me and not Anderson?”

There is a pause.

“Very shortly Anderson will call you to tell you that Noriko Kurosawa has been murdered. Also her husband was found dead in his cell this morning. Preliminary reports are calling it suicide, no foul play suspected. I hope you know what that means.”

“We’d be fools not to suspect it.” Will groans. He suddenly finds that the morning swallows him up like a very cold tide indeed. “Let me guess. I’m being reassigned to Noriko Kurosawa’s murder.”

 

Will does not like fieldwork, but he is very good at it and thus conscience dictates that he do it as often as possible. Suddenly it seems to him absurd that he had hoped to drop off Jack’s radar without a struggle, to have a career of comparatively dull non-homicide investigations for the foreseeable future. It is his damned conscience that keeps him from refusing and pointing out that Jack has a team of eminently qualified people from whom to choose, each of whom has been given a presumably glowing report by a reputable psychiatrist.

When he descends to the main floor Hannibal is, distressingly, already awake. He is reading the newspaper in the sitting room, which is such a mundane activity that Will had not imagined him doing it. He folds the business section down upon Will’s entrance and seems to take him in, perhaps his fully dressed state at the present hour, and there is a particular look in his eye which compels Will to step backward. It is very much the look of a hunter.

Or maybe he just has predators on the mind.

“Good morning, Will,” Hannibal says when Will fails to find words.

He frowns. “I have some bad news, Dr Lecter.”

 

He brings Hannibal with him to the crime scene because Colin Anderson hasn’t yet called by the time they leave, Will considers that where he is going is probably the safest place for Hannibal anyway.

Anderson calls while they are in transit and he corroborates Jack’s story, although he is predictably irritated that Jack has conscripted Will without so much as a by-your-leave. Another agent will be assigned to Hannibal quite soon, though he is, as of now, no longer a witness.

“You must be quite valuable to Jack,” says Hannibal when Will tells him this. “He seems to have no trouble throwing his weight around if it gets you on his team.”

“That’s the problem with carving out a niche for yourself, Dr Lecter. Once you’re gone there are few people who can fill it. And if you’re not careful, the space you’ve created takes on a life of its own and begins to make demands of you.” He glances over at Hannibal. The visor shields the top half of his face from the early morning sun, casting a shadow over his eyes.

“Are you saying Jack asks things of you that you can’t give?”

“It’s not that I can’t give Jack everything I’ve got,” Will replies. “I can and I did. But I can only do it for so long.”

“It takes a toll on you,” says Hannibal, “what you do for him. But you are unable to refuse him.”

“Well, I can’t seem to think of a way to wean him off me,” Will says dryly. “What he needs me for most is precisely what I most want to avoid.”

“Gruesome murders by violent psychopaths.”

“You looked into me,” says Will.

“Your resume is impressive.”

Will laughs shortly. “No more so than Jack’s own.”

They’ve arrived at the monstrous Kurosawa house. He pulls in among the police cars and shuts the engine off.

“I’d like to come inside,” says Hannibal.

“I think that would be unwise,” Will tells him, but Hannibal is already leaving the truck.

“I am no stranger to crime scenes.” Hannibal looks more FBI than Will himself, in fact. He wears a three piece suit while Will is in a plain shirt and jeans, having forgone a jacket in the heat, his holster strapped across his chest and shoulder.

“Dr Lecter, this is a friend of yours—”

“And I would like to pay my respects.”

“That’s what funerals are for,” Will says. “Just—stay outside the room.”

Hannibal trails him as he introduces himself to the local police and enters the house. Will’s sense of him becomes shadowy as he is consumed by the crime scene.

Noriko sits in a plastic-wrapped chair, her dark head bowed. Her arms have been aligned with the arms of the chair and her legs carefully crossed at the thigh. She is naked except for the blood which has come down from her throat in rivulets and dried on her skin like a gory lace filigree.

“I have cut her throat like a sacrificial lamb,” Will murmurs.

 

He calls Jack from the middle of the crime scene.

“The killer took her tongue and most of her organs,” he says, not waiting for Jack to greet him.

“What else?”

“They were removed while she was still alive. He cut her throat and let her bleed out, then stuffed her body cavity with… what looks like compost. Rotten fruit and food scraps. Then he sewed her back up. And—” Will grimaces.

“What else, Will?”

“He put an apple in her mouth.”

“Our killer has a sense of humour,” says Jack. “What are you getting from this? Were they trying to silence her?”

“Someone didn’t want her to talk, but there’s more to it than that. Gangs, they usually just kill the person quickly. This killer wanted her to suffer. It’s more like a warning.”

“For whom? For Dr Lecter?”

“Could be.” But why go to the trouble, he wonders. “Have you got anything else on the family or the case?”

“What you have is what I have,” says Jack. “I’ll be there in a few hours. Keep an eye on Dr Lecter until your replacement gets there.”

“You know I don’t work for you anymore,” Will points out.

“The Bureau has authorized a temporary loan.” Jack doesn’t miss a beat.

“Is that how it’s going to be? Borrow me when you have a murderer whose head you want to get inside?”

“You’re the only agent close enough to take a look before they dismantle the crime scene,” Jack says.

“Well, I’ve taken my look. When you get here I’ll give you what I have, and then I’m going back to desk work. The field isn’t agreeing with me.” The nauseating stench of rotting stuff still fills his head. He can see Dr Lecter talking to an officer out of the corner of his eye. “I have to go.”

“Fine.” Jack hangs up. Will shakes his head. Six months and he’s right back in the thick of it.

He turns in time to catch the tail end of something from the officer.

“—and can you account for your whereabouts last night, Dr Lecter?” he’s saying. Hannibal stands in the doorway. He meets Will’s eyes briefly, but his gaze is drawn back to the body of the woman behind Will.

“He was with me,” Will interjects. “I’m finished here.”

“What did you say to him?” he asks later, when they’re driving back.

“I asked if he knew why Noriko was murdered. He didn’t take well to the question.”

“His conduct was inappropriate,” says Will. “You’re a witness, not a suspect.”

“I can’t say I blame him. Noriko was a valued member of the community. Many who blame me for her daughter’s death will also blame me for hers.” Hannibal sounds unbothered by this.

Will scowls at this. “I’ve never liked small towns. News and gossip travel fast.”

“They have their benefits,” Hannibal responds.

Will keeps his eyes on the road. He feels strangely exposed in Hannibal’s presence in the aftermath of the crime scene, as if he can see all that Will sees. “Do you blame yourself?”

“For Michiko, I do,” Hannibal admits. “I looked Abe in the eye as he killed her and I felt like we were the same person.”

“And now?”

“Now I would kill him if I had the chance,” says Hannibal without hesitation, “so we are the same after all.”

“Well, he beat you to it,” says Will. “Maybe he felt about himself what you did. He killed himself this morning. Around the time Mrs Kurosawa was murdered, in fact.”

“Suicide.” Hannibal sounds unsurprised. Will is beginning to wonder if anything can ruffle his feathers. “They were remiss in not clearing his cell of objects he could use to harm himself.”

“Someone didn’t think he was a threat to himself.” Will hesitates before he says, “I know what it’s like to feel as if you’re someone else—someone dangerous. I feel that way every time I go out there into the field. You’re not him, Dr Lecter.”

“How do you know you’re not?” Hannibal asks, and Will laughs.

“I don’t. I trust—I used to trust Jack.”

“And now?”

Will pulls up into Hannibal’s driveway alongside the house. “I trust myself, for what that’s worth.”

Hannibal nods. “Then I will trust you as well.”

A second vehicle waits outside the house already. The agent who is to take over from Will steps out, a tall, stern-faced brunette who gives them both a firm handshake. She introduces herself as Linda Carlisle.

"Very pleased to meet you, Agent Carlisle," says Hannibal with a smile, and Will is struck by how pleasant the man can be. He looks away. "Let me have a word with Mr Graham and I will join you out here."

"Of course," says Carlisle, though she furrows her brow at Will as if he is somehow the perpetrator of a breach of professionalism. Will follows Hannibal inside where Hannibal aligns his shoes tidily with the others. He gestures for Will to do the same, and Will toes off his trainers and places them in the closet next to their more well-kept brethren.

"What did you want to talk about?" he asks.

"You seem to be in possession of a most peculiar mind, Will," says Hannibal. "Although Jack has not been so gauche as to ask me himself for an evaluation of you, I find myself nonetheless compelled to offer my services."

"I have been evaluated already," Will says. "I imagine Jack will keep foisting me onto psychiatrists until he gets a report he likes, so why offer?"

"Because I believe I can help you," Hannibal tells him. "Therapy is about you and your recovery, not Jack. It seems to me you need a second opinion—one that he will respect."

"A somewhat unorthodox beginning to a doctor-patient relationship, don't you think?" Will asks.

“Indeed,” says Hannibal. “I foresee many unorthodox aspects to our relationship if we carry through. In truth, good therapy is rarely ordinary. To change one’s nature takes methods that can seem strange to an outsider.”

Will looks down at his hands, stained now with the spectre of someone else's kill. He can't refuse. Already he feels the brackish water of nightmare and sickness beginning to stir with new inflow. "I don’t want to change my nature. I want to return to it.”

“You became something you were not. It is not a stripping away of externalities which returns you to yourself, Will. It is a new metamorphosis entirely.” Hannibal places a hand over his, a casual physicality that tightens Will’s skin at point of contact. “You will see.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

In Will’s dream Abigail kneels on the kitchen floor, her hands pressed to the wound in her father’s neck. Her breath stutters and she looks up at him. The knife handle is old and familiar in his hand. The metal feels warm like skin. Abigail’s father morphs into a dark-haired woman who jerks under Abigail’s hands, her feet kicking weakly.

“Do you see?” Abigail whispers. Will covers his eyes and the knife clatters on the linoleum.

“Don’t make me look!” he hisses, baring his teeth.

 

He wakes up in his hotel bed in a cold sweat, disoriented. His phone rings a moment later and he rolls out of bed and shucks his damp shirt.

“Graham.”

“Will, it’s Jack. I’m down at the local precinct, can you come?”

Will rubs the bridge of his nose. Jack is inescapable.“I can be there in half an hour.”

The precinct is abuzz with a strange energy when Will steps inside. He finds Jack in a small office with an officer he recognizes from the crime scene and two detectives. Michiko and her mother are laid out over the desk as if on a sacrificial altar, blood pooling across the crime scene photos. Will seats himself across the table from Jack.

“Glad you could make it. This is Detective Chau, Detective Jones.” Jack indicates the two still standing.

“Your tune has changed,” Will comments. “I wasn’t aware I had other options.”

Jack sighs. “Let’s just get through this.”

The two detectives exchange a look. Will ignores them. They see an unshaven, petulant man wearing the same shirt he wore the day before, unwilling to meet the eyes of anyone present as if they will infect him with respect for procedure—but in fact Will is more afraid he will infect them with whatever has reawakened in his mind.

“The crime scene bothers me,” he says.

“It bothers me, too. And not for the obvious reasons,” Jack agrees.

“Why go to all the trouble of presenting the body in this way if it’s just a gang silencing?” One of the detectives spreads the photos further apart, articulating their detail. “Is the killer trying to send a message, or is it just pathology?”

“It could be a particular compulsion of his,” the other says.

“I think it’s both,” says Will. “The killer had something to say, and his language is murder. He can’t speak his mind any other way. Noriko Kurosawa was a valued community member—he couldn’t speak out against her. He had to make it clear that she was a pig, or at least had pig-like behaviours.”

“What evidence is there to support that?” Detective Chau raises an eyebrow. “It’s far more likely the Kurosawa family killed her to keep her from speaking at Abe Kurosawa’s trial.”

“She was stuffed, as if he was going to roast her for Christmas dinner. It is a vitriolic gesture. The killer was angry at her. Whoever he is he knew her personally.” Will frowns. “That doesn’t rule out family involvement. If anything it points to the killer as someone in the family who disapproved of their marriage from the beginning.”

“Well, that doesn’t exactly narrow it down.” Jack shakes his head. “None of the Kurosawas attended their wedding. It seems like Noriko was disliked from the beginning.”

“Look for anyone with a medical background. Those sutures were surgically perfect.” Will looks down at the table where a third file sits unopened. “What do you have on the husband’s suicide?”

“One of the officers on duty was lax,” says Detective Jones. “There will be an inquiry. It’s tragic, the whole family gone so quickly.”

“Do you think the two are somehow connected?” Jack asks. “Time of death estimates are within a quarter of an hour of each other.”

“In our line of work there is no such thing as coincidence,” says Will. “How did Kurosawa get his hands on a knife? Someone must have given it to him. Wasn’t he searched?”

“Of course he was,” Detective Chau snaps. “His clothes and belongings are all in evidence. He was wearing a standard issue jumpsuit and underclothing. Someone must have snuck it in.”

“Not impossible,” says Will. “Aren’t there visitor logs and video surveillance?”

“I don’t remember anyone visiting him, but we can check the logs.”

Will follows Chau down to the cells where the logs show no visitors to cell five.

“Let me see the security tapes,” Will says.

"Sure thing." The officer on duty rolls his chair aside to give Will access to the computer. Detective Chau pulls up a seat next to him.

"Bring us some coffee?" she asks the officer.

He returns shortly. The two of them are already engrossed in the recordings, and Will drinks his coffee without tasting it.

They work for a few hours until Chau rubs her eyes and leans back in her chair, sighing.

"God, I hate this part of the job," she says. "How long have you been with the FBI, Agent Graham?"

"Long enough to have done this more than a few times. And I was in the force before that." His head is pounding. The coffee here is bad but he's gone out to get three cups already—any excuse to get away from the screen. So far everyone on the tapes can be accounted for by the visitor log or the shift schedule. He's just about ready to take a lunch break when the screen goes blank.

He sits upright. "What was that?"

"Just a routine backup." Chau winds back the feed. She pauses just before the screen blacks out and points to a string of numbers and letters in the upper right hand corner. "See? Backup code. That corresponds to a code in the database downstairs."

"I thought this was closed circuit," he says.

"Well, yeah. But it's run off the office computers, not real tapes. The on-duty officer backs it up before midnight so he can shut it down and reboot it every night. It's a pretty old system."

Will watches the video roll forward and the time in the top left corner. "The system goes down for ten minutes every night?"

She shrugs. "Thereabouts. No one could get in and out that fast, though."

"Wasn't Kurosawa in the first cell?" He fast-forwards through the tape, but nobody can be seen going in or out until morning.

"Yeah, but even the first cell is through two locked doors." She stands and stretches. "I'm gonna call it quits for lunch. Meet you back here in an hour."

"Sure."

Will runs through the blank section of tape again. He doesn't look up as she leaves.

Detectives don't usually like FBI, so he doesn't spend a lot of time trying to get on their good side. It's the kind of thing Jack harps on him about, but Will's just not good with people. Not in the casual sense, at least.

 

Half an hour later Jack shows up at the door.

"Lunch," Jack says, handing Will a sandwich. He takes the seat Chau left and sends the officer out of the tiny room. "Give us a moment please."

"Slumming?" Will asks him.

"Detective Chau told me you were still down here."

"The tapes aren't going to watch themselves." Will chews halfheartedly. The sandwich is soggy. "Do you need something?"

"Going through security footage isn't really your style, Will. I could use your help upstairs on the murder."

"I'm not a machine you can plug murders into one end of and pull suspects out the other." He puts the sandwich down, eyes fixed on the screen. "Sometimes I need to look for evidence—that's my style."

"Funny you should say that, because it feels like you're pulling this connection out of your ass to avoid this murder case," Jack says, but Will is suddenly distracted.

“Did you see that?”

"Did I see what?"

"There." He rewinds. The tape plays forward in real time. At half past midnight it happens again—a flicker of static. Will leans forward and jabs his finger at the screen. "Someone tampered with this video. There's a loop from twelve to twelve thirty. Plenty of time for someone to kill Abe Kurosawa."

Jack frowns. "Really?"

They watch the loop three more times before he finally says, "We'd better get a tech in to verify this."

 

The officer on duty the night before is Ryan Singer—young, no family, and guilty as a dog. He stutters and sweats through an hour long interrogation but he's also sharp, and Jack can't get anything out of him. Pretty quick someone comes in and informs Will that Singer's lawyer is on his way. Will signals Jack from the door.

"He's lying about something," Jack says, frustrated, "but we can't keep him here."

They emerge from the interview room to see Detective Chau on her way over, her expression thunderous.

"Agent Crawford," she snaps when she's within earshot. "A word, please?"

"Of course, detective. Excuse us a moment." He steers Will away from her. "Let Officer Singer know he's free to go. Get Zeller to tail him. I don't want him flying the coop. And make sure you look at the Noriko case, because if this doesn't pan out we can't afford to be left empty-handed. The Bureau is cutting budgets left and right and this doesn't rate a team if we have no leads."

"Zeller is forensics," Will says, pulling out of Jack's grip. "I can go."

"I don't know if you've noticed but we're a little shorthanded here. Zeller goes. You stay here and do what I've asked."

"Jesus, Jack, okay." Will sighs.

By the end of the day Will has a list of family members whose whereabouts can't be immediately accounted for, but none of them fit the profile of a cold-blooded killer. They're mostly thugs. They have plenty of connections—Will knows, however, that there are hundreds of murders like this that never go to trial. This killer is excellent at his vocation. They have no evidence and he doubts forensics will find any; anything the team comes up with will likely be circumstantial. They'll never get a warrant.

 

He is both apprehensive of and eager for his therapy with Dr Lecter. He has been through extensive therapy during his time with the BSU—hard to avoid being traumatised in the line of duty—and even since he left the hospital, but he is usually a poor patient. He dislikes discussing his own neuroses and has little interest in analysing his behaviour; it seems to him a circular and self-destructive path. He finds suggestions to focus on himself rather than his cases out of touch with the reality of his work.

He is, however, curious to see how Hannibal will conduct his session.

It's dark by the time he arrives. Hannibal's stately house rises out of the gloom of evening, a shadow against the cool backdrop. Will wonders briefly if he has made the right decision after all, but he's already rung the doorbell.

"Will." Hannibal greets him pleasantly. "Please come in."

Will doffs his jacket and shoes and follows Hannibal to the sitting room.

"Ordinarily I would never conduct a session in my own house," Hannibal says. "Patient and psychiatrist are both better served by a neutral location. Unfortunately I have not had time to reserve a different space."

"I've had sessions in more unorthodox settings," Will tells him as he takes a seat on the divan across from Hannibal's own high-backed chair.

"And your therapy itself, has that been... unorthodox?"

"Naturally." Will snorts. "As I'm sure you're aware, Dr Lecter, the FBI is considered a prime hunting ground for for psychiatrists with unusual methods. Our work breeds interesting mental tics."

Hannibal makes a contemplative noise. "Yours more than most people’s, is that not so?"

"I believe in my case it is the other way around: my mental tics bring me interesting work."

"Clever." His quip prompts an approving  smile. "I will admit I did some research of my own before you arrived. I understand you were a patient of my colleague's, Dr Alana Bloom, for two years. How did her methods agree with you?”

“Both better and worse than either of us had imagined,” Will says stiffly. Naturally Hannibal is only feeling out his history, but he resents the intrusion nonetheless. Not that Alana would betray her professional principles and air their dirty laundry—at least, he presumes, not to a former colleague—but word has gotten around. Of his many indiscretions of late it is the one he is most bitter about having been made public, though for the sake of his sanity he knows he will have to swallow his humiliation when he returns to the Bureau full time, or else bear it at every turn.

Hannibal inclines his head, acknowledging that he knows of their affair. “I will aim for the former rather than the latter,” is all he says.

The rest of their session is quite standard and Will finds himself disappointed, which is absurd. He has built Hannibal up in his head to be something he is not. Conventional therapy, he tells himself, is exactly what he needs.


	4. Chapter 4

The ugly details of Noriko’s death catch in Will’s mind so easily. The murder is sharp in his thoughts, cutting through to the forefront at inopportune times like a blade going round and round and digging deeper into already raw places. Her face and her daughter’s are so similar, one becomes the other as he thinks about them.

He showers and pulls on his jeans, his boots, feeling emotionally overdrawn though the morning hasn’t even begun. Jack has already commandeered an office by the time he arrives at the Windham Police Department. He is directed to it by a surly uniformed officer.

“Good morning, Will.” Jack doesn’t look up when he enters. He is engrossed in a pile of documents which Will imagines from experience have nothing to do with their current case. Jack is the kind of man for whom the term ‘workaholic’ was invented.

“Is it?” Will replies, sitting across from him. Being—or having been—of a kind with Jack, he knows that at a point in his career he was on a path to be Jack’s successor in the BSU if and when he retired. Now there are other candidates, of course; Will’s grip on reality, tenuous from the first, has been steadily losing ground since the advent of last year. There is little he or the Bureau would like less at the moment than to have him overseeing a department of people like himself.

But for Jack there will be no one else. Will has only to accept this and Jack will fight the Bureau tooth and nail to keep him at the BSU. Looking at his old colleague now, in this home away from home in which he has ensconced himself as the station bustles around him, Will can see this.

“‘Good morning is just a figure of speech for folks like us. The morning is never good when there are killers on the loose.” Jack pushes a familiar folder toward Will.

“How many good mornings have you had, then?” Will ignores the folder, casting about for coffee. There’s a pot on the counter that looks old.

“Enough to have met my quota by the time I entered the BSU,” says Jack.

Will gets up and pours himself a cup. “I didn’t realise there was a quota.”

Jack scowls at his paperwork. He only indulges in bad banter if it a bad morning, so Will sits back down and opens the file out of habit, though he’s memorized it by now. No new revelations leap off the page at him.

“Forensics has yet to uncover any usable evidence,” Will points out unnecessarily.

“We operate on hunches and psychological profiles,” Jack returns. “Since when have you waited for the evidence to speak for you?”

“Well, when you put it that way.” Will says, shaking his head.

“Are you waiting for a gilded invitation? Because this is it.” Finally he looks up, his expression stern, as if Will is a recalcitrant intern who needs a firm guiding hand. He leans back in his chair. “What is it, Will, what do you need? A re-enactment? Because I’d like to get a move on this case before the media crucifies us over the whole family.”

“Since when do you care what the media thinks?”

Because Jack is too tactful to say ‘since last year’, it hangs unspoken between them. The department is still reeling from the media blitz after Lounds’ piece on Abel Gideon went mainstream and Will nearly lost his job and his mind in one fell swoop.

“I’ve got nothing,” he says finally. It’s all he can say. “I can’t see our killer. Maybe I’ve lost my mojo, Jack. Maybe you should find some other profiler.”

“I don’t need another profiler. I need Will Graham, the department’s number one.” Jack spreads his hands and looks up at Will expectantly.

“I’ll call you if I see him.” Will puts the coffee down untouched. Jack wants the magic touch. He can barely stand to be in his own head these days, let alone someone else’s. “In the meantime Anderson has work for me.”

It’s not a lie. Anderson found him some paperwork the night before, in a roundabout way of getting his own back at Jack, though Will supposes he could tell Anderson he’s too busy if he were really that loyal to the BSU. Right now, however, paperwork is as good an excuse as any.

Jack raises his hands in exasperation as Will leaves.

 

He finds he can’t concentrate on the paperwork. Two hours later when the phone rings it’s almost a relief.

"It's Ryan Singer," Jack says.

Will's relief disappears in the blink of an eye. Two murders. Now Jack has a legitimate reason to bring him on board.

"Just take a look at the crime scene. I need you in on this." It's probably a waste of time to argue with him. Jack knows if he looks at the crime scene he's in.

"I'll be there in fifteen. What's the address?"

His truck's GPS stumbles over the rural roads, so it's more like thirty. Not much has been done to the place by the time he gets there. Zeller must have called Jack as soon as he figured out something was wrong. The crime scene photographers look offended when Jack tells them sharply to clear out. Forensics looks even more offended. Katz gives him a narrow look that he can't decipher.

"How did our killer get past Zeller?" Will has checked the doors, front and back. No sign of forced entry, but Jack told him the lock had been picked. One third of the forensics triad is conspicuously absent.

"He doesn't know."

Zeller isn't the sort to fall asleep on the job. "He must've been expecting a watchdog."

"Don't let Zeller hear you call him that." Jack ushers him into the bedroom. "Singer had an AA meeting this morning. A concerned member came to check up on him and found the body."

"Someone didn't want us talking to him." Will takes his glasses off and folds them into his shirt pocket.

"So you were right. The two deaths are connected. You'll never guess what else we found, though."

Compared to Noriko, Ryan Singer's deathbed is picturesque. There's no blood; his limbs are casually splayed out and he is naked. Whether the killer undressed him is unclear, but Will thinks it's probable. The sheets have been stripped back, but otherwise he could be sleeping. Will's eyes are immediately drawn to the puncture marks on Singer's abdomen.

"Were the covers like that when the police arrived or did they pull them back?"

"Everything is as they found it. Singer went without a struggle, but I'd say there's no significance as to how."

"Unlike with Mrs Kurosawa."

The wounds are precise and clean. Will knows what they found immediately. For a terrible moment he can feel the organs in his hand, still warm and slick from the body.

He uses a long, flexible knife to sever them from the flesh. His cuts are economical--there is no waste.

Will withdraws his fingers from the body. "Why would the Kurosawa family use a psychopath for these murders when a common gangster would do the trick?"

"Probably because he's exceedingly good at what he does." Jack sighs. "This will be a press nightmare. Singer's blood is as good as on our hands."

"Why is he taking organs?" Will wonders, ignoring Jack's statement. There's a lot of blood on their hands. Some days the job is a veritable blood bath. He feels like he's drowning in it.

"They're trophies," Jack replies.

"You sound certain."

Jack shrugs. "I've seen his ilk before, and so have you. Trophy hunters are not uncommon."

"Most trophy hunters take hair, fingers, something easily preserved," Will counters, but he doesn't push. Jack is never certain--his nature is to second guess. It's why the two of them work well together. He knows something that he's not saying. But he is also an honest man, and if he's keeping something back it'll come out sooner rather than later.

Jack leaves him alone with the body though Will doesn't request it. He knows what he should do. He can see it if he wants to:

The unsub breaks the victim's neck easily--killing like this is barely worth the effort. He lays the flesh open with his scalpel more gently, for the belly is fragile between the soft subcutaneous fat and the easily punctured gut.

Will clenched his hands at his sides. He can see but he's not looking.

 

"Well?" Jack asks when he comes down. Will accompanies him outside.

"He could have moved the body if he'd wanted Singer to disappear. We would have all been scratching our heads. This is just as much a message as Noriko Kurosawa was."

Something niggles at him, though. "You say he takes trophies, but if Abe's suicide was linked... What trophy did the killer take from him?"

"And how did he take it?" Jack adds.

Will nods. "We'd better find out. I'll meet you at the morgue."

"Let me wrap this up."

 

The man on the slab is not a pretty sight. Will has a hard time believing anyone could do this to himself. The guts have been tactfully stuffed back into the abdominal cavity, though he doubts Abe will have any visitors until the funeral. The double taboos of murder-suicide tend to keep most curios at bay.

The coroner is resentful of his implication that she missed that something was, well, missing.

"Trophies?" She raises her eyebrows, unimpressed. "Serial killers around every corner, eh? Life in the FBI must be tough. You couldn't pay me enough to deal with those crazies."

"What about him?" Will asks her, nodding to the body.

"I think anyone with the guts to split himself open like a fish, pardon the pun, isn't in his right mind, but once they're dead it makes no difference to me." She's wrist deep in the body now.

“You think he killed himself?”

“If someone else killed him they did a pretty bang-up job of making it look like a convincing suicide,” she says. “I’d be hard pressed to find evidence to the contrary. Of course it probably didn't help his state of mind that his wife was having an affair."

"She was?" Will frowns. "How did you know?"

"Agent Graham, do you know how big Windham is? I can't help but know. There's no town business that doesn't pass through this station."

"With whom was she having an affair?" Will asks.

She doesn't answer at first, giving him a sideways glance. "Bit of gossip for the fellows at the Bureau?"

"No," he says. "If Michiko's death caused her mother to call off the affair, a jilted lover would have plausible motive to kill them both."

"Oh. Well I think you're barking up the wrong tree, Agent. It was Dr Hannibal Lecter." She withdraws her hands from Abe's insides, holding a section of gut. "That's funny. He's missing about three feet of his small intestine."

  
  


“How the hell did the killer manage that if he wasn't even in the room when the man died?" Jack is flabbergasted when Will tells him.

"Singer," Will says immediately. "Got him in or did it on his behalf."

"Why would he be willing to do that? Kid had a promising future. He didn't strike me as the desecrating corpses type."

"Yeah." Will stirs his coffee absentmindedly. They're in the only café in town, three doors down from Hannibal's shop, and Will is tempted to drop in and confirm what the coroner told him about Noriko’s affair. The coffee here is good, but people are staring. They're not talking loud enough for anyone to hear; still, they're two strangers in a small town and Jack's wearing a suit and tie, giving off a definite Federal vibe. Nobody in Washington would sneeze at two Feds in a coffee shop. Here they stand out like coyotes in a rabbit run.

They're rehashing the case, as is old habit. Will knows Jack has him hooked. A serial killer--the term will get bandied about as soon as the media catches wind, even though these are targeted killings. He couldn't walk away from this now if he tried.

"Look into Singer," Jack says. He finishes his own coffee and pushes his chair back. "And family members--get me full reports. I want to know who hired this guy."

"Everyone is clean except the head of the family," Will tells him. "And he's smart. If he hired a killer to make Michiko's case go away, we'll never know."

"Go over them again," Jack says. "I'm heading to Baltimore to have a chat with Higoto Kurosawa."

 

Alana calls him that night before he leaves the hotel.

"Abigail came by to see me," she says. "You didn't tell her where you were going?"

"I'm not her minder." He's resentful of the connection Alana seems to have fostered with Abigail. There's no escaping the fact that it’s like salt in the wound.

"But she thinks you're her friend."

"It's inappropriate. I thought you didn't approve."

"I don't, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be kind to her. She's confused. You keep running hot and cold on her. I know consistence isn't really your style, but... try, for her sake."

"You and Jack both seem convinced I'm of a particular unflattering character," he snaps. It's petty, and Alana catches it, of course.

"Jack? What's he doing out there? I thought you weren't supposed to be working with the BSU."

"No rest for the wicked.” Alana knows his history with Jack; he doesn’t bother to hide the bitterness in his voice.

"Hmm." She doesn't press. "Be careful, Will. Jack will run you into the ground if you let him."

 

"The question is, will you run yourself into the ground first?" Hannibal observes him from behind a neutral mask. His dark eyes give nothing away to Will's cautious glances. Will isn't used to not seeing. He feels blind in the man's presence. How was he with Noriko, Will wonders? Warm, kind? Open? "I recognise a workaholic when I see one, Will."

"From personal experience?" Will prods. Then he sighs, subsiding in his seat, and apologises. He adds,"I'm not a workaholic. I don't love the work. It compels me. "

"...While also repelling you. Nonetheless, the distinction is not great. You work because you are addicted." But now Hannibal looks amused that Will has tried to turn it around on him. The corners of his mouth turn up in a charming way. "Apology accepted. Your intuition is correct, however. I have been known to spend more time at the office than at home. Rural life has been remarkably good for me in that respect."

Hannibal is not warm or open with him, but there are moments during which Will sees--or thinks he sees--some measure of what endears him to people.

Although it's late he offers Will a coffee when there is a break in their dialogue, and Will accepts, feeling uncharacteristically flattered.

"You seem to find my company pleasant now that it is no longer a responsibility," Hannibal remarks. "I must ask, do you have many friendships outside of work?"

Will gives a self-deprecating laugh. When would he have time or means to foster such relationships? "I have dogs," he says. "Quite a few."

Hannibal doesn't call him on his non-answer. "Do they offer you a mutually fulfilling relationship?"

"More than most people I know," Will replies.

"Tell me," says Hannibal, "would you consider Jack Crawford a friend?"

"I would," he answers without hesitation.

"In what way?"

All the answers he can come up with fall flat on his tongue. Jack has done a lot for him over the years--it would be a disservice to him to deny it. But he was fighting to keep Will on his side for his own sake and for the sake of his department. He is valuable to Jack, but are they friends? The man has never even been to Will's house; Will has only met his wife twice.

 

Hannibal does not bring up the matter of friendship again during their sessions. He asks some pithy questions about Will's family and Will talks about his feelings a lot, and the fact that they are often, in actuality, other people's feelings, discussions which Hannibal seems to enjoy. Will is well aware of an intense professional interest on Hannibal's part, but there is never any talk of diagnosis, treatment, or--God forbid--academic papers, so he bears this scrutiny without complaint.

He finishes a comprehensive report on Higoto Kurosawa's family by the end of the second day and emails it to Jack. Jack sends him a curt reply stating he has to attend to business in Washington and won't be back for another day. Higoto himself has been surprisingly compliant, he says, but so far has yielded nothing.

Will hasn't told Jack about Noriko's affair. He's turning it over in his head as if it will sprout answers if he leaves it to hang. The revelation itself makes him feel as though he is intruding--he is reluctant to share it without reason.

He fills the next few days with paperwork, of which there is a never-ending supply, and Jack postpones his return day after day. Jack gives him avoidant responses to his questions by email.

In the evenings after therapy, returning to his hotel room, Will finds himself awake long into the night. When he does sleep it is fitfully and plagued with bad dreams--hunter's dreams in which he missed the perfect shot. He hasn't hunted in many years. He begins to make excuses for extending his sessions with Hannibal.

 

"Do you have insomnia?" Hannibal finally asks him. "I could recommend something."

In fact Will is almost falling asleep on the couch, even after a cup of coffee. His head becomes foggy with half dreams every time his attention wanders from their conversation. He's dreading the drive back to the motel.

"Something like that," he says. "Insomnia is an old friend. These are nightmares."

"Are they recent? Night terrors are sometimes a symptom of illness."

"They came with the encephalitis, and... now they come and go. I've had night terrors before. It's nothing I don't know." He turns the cup over in his hand.

"But these are different," Hannibal concludes for him, and Will nods.

"It's the murder," he says.

"Tell me about them," Hannibal suggests.

There's a little bit of coffee in the cup still, just a drop or two and some grit. He wipes his fingers through it and rubs them together, releasing the fragrance on the pad of his thumb. "Usually it's her," he says. "I'm... hunting her."

"Noriko?"

"No." He takes a deep breath. "Alana. Look, I don't really want to talk about them. Dreams are just dreams. It won't help."

Hannibal stands and leans over the low table to take Will's cup from him. "I would like to try something, if I may," he says. "I have had some success with a particular method of sleep therapy before. I think it could help you."

It is the first treatment of any sort that Hannibal has recommended. Will leans back and looks up at him. His eyes are shadowed by the fall of light across his brow; it is an unusual face he has, not handsome but chameleonic, able to become this or that at a moment's notice. Will has seen him use it almost like a weapon. Now he regards Will as a predator might, unhurried, perhaps a little curious. There is a kind of hunger lurking in the lines of his face, but Will wonders if he is imagining it, if it is just the shape of his bones that delineates his expression.

In spite of himself, he finds that he is wanting to strip away the flesh, to see the set of the skull and the measure of the man. It is this revelation in and of itself which makes him say yes. "I will try it," he says. Hannibal nods.

"Good."

His eyes are illuminated as he turns, and Will sees that hungry look more clearly.

 

Hannibal takes his cup and saucer to the kitchen without offering him more coffee. He returns shortly. Instead of taking his chair he comes between the couch and the table to stand in front of Will. The proximity is startling, but before Will can register what is happening Hannibal bends over him and takes his face in both hands. Will jerks, but he is held firm.

"You must not be alarmed," Hannibal is saying. There is a sudden prick of pain in his neck.

"What--"

Hannibal holds him still. He is stronger than he would seem. "Just a sedative," he says. There is the familiar sickening pull of a needle being withdrawn and he lays the syringe on the glass table. "Something to facilitate hypnosis."

"I've tried sedatives," Will says. Coolness spreads through him like fresh river water, weighing him down. It washes over the fire of his sudden alarm and he finds himself powerless to be angry. He raises his hands to physically move Hannibal but they are uncooperative, nudging like balloons against the man's solid form.

"This will help, I promise." He takes Will's hands from their landing places on his person and arranges the limp appendages on Will's lap. "Do you trust me, Will?"

Will looks him in the eye. It is curious to do so, because everything is out of focus. Does he trust Dr Lecter? Surely, or he would not have agreed to therapy.

"I'm not sure," he manages. Hannibal turns his face to the left, then the right. He peels Will's eyelids back one at a time to look deeply into his eyes.

"You seem particularly susceptible," he says at last. "Are you on any medication?"

"Anti-anxiety," says Will. A curious, flattened kind of fear surges up from his insides. He feels it as if it is someone else's emotion.

"Relax, Will. Which one?"

"Lexapro." It's a low dose, and he takes it infrequently. He's starting to hyperventilate through his nose, feeling like he can’t get enough air.

Hannibal crouches before him. He grips Will's jaw and pulls it down, pinching his nose with the other hand and forcing him to part his lips. Will shakes his head, trying to dislodge these intrusive touches.

"Breathe through your mouth. You will be fine, it's a very minor reaction. Will--Will!" He snaps his fingers. "Listen to my voice. Focus. I want you to remember your dreams. What do you dream about? Tell me."

Will tries to focus on the points of pressure where Hannibal's fingertips dig into his face. The recollection comes easily, and this time he can't push it aside. It is transportive; it overtakes him until he walks through the dream itself, and the room fades away.

"It's her," he says quietly. There she is between the trees. She's scrambling down the embankment. Her dark hair fans out around her face as she whirls to see him stepping toward her. Eyes wide and bright. Disbelieving. "Alana. Please, I didn't mean to--"

He's reaching out to her--this didn't happen, this part. Gideon wasn't ever repentant, never pleaded with her. He came after her unrelentingly, like an animal, until he was put down.

"Stay away from me!" She cries.

A rustle in the underbrush makes him turn. It's his own face that stares back at him through the gloom of early morning. His doppelganger takes aim and fires on him, sending his body hurtling backward, and its lips form words.

"Now do you see?"

 

Morning comes on him slowly. Though he wants to wake he keeps losing track of this desire and slipping back into the fog of sleep. It's bright in the room; he must've forgotten to close the curtains the night before. As the early sun hits him he stirs, the fog clearing.

He's still clothed, he realises. And then: he's not on the bed in his hotel room. He's on a couch. Hannibal's couch.

Will sits up, pushing the blanket off. The sun is a soft, pale light coming through the gauzy shades, giving the room a cool countenance that is quite different from its warm evening atmosphere. The walls are more distant; the reds harder, less vivid.

He stretches, sore, and grimaces at the taste in his mouth. Before he can fully rouse himself Hannibal enters the sitting room from the kitchen, a tray in hand. He has a dish towel thrown over one shoulder and a half apron over his impeccably pressed trousers. He's perfectly put together, but nonetheless looks like he didn't sleep a minute. Will squints in sympathy.

"Good morning," Hannibal says. "How are you feeling?"

Will shifts with what he is certain is ill-concealed embarrassment. "Mortified," he admits. "Did I fall asleep here?"

"It is nothing to be embarrassed by," Hannibal assures him as he dissembles the tray onto the coffee table. "Our sessions run late and you have long days. I am the one who should be chastised for letting you sleep on the couch instead of in the guest bedroom. I confess, you were sleeping so soundly I was loathe to wake you."

"I can't believe it." Will runs a hand through his hair. He's desperately in need of a shower and he feels itchy, like he always does when he sleeps in his clothes. "What time is it? Do you have to go open the shop?"

"It's eight AM on a Sunday," says Hannibal.

"Oh." Will falls back against the couch.

Hannibal lifts the lid on a plate of beautifully poached eggs nestled in a bed of spinach and smoked ham. There is also coffee and summer fruit. Will find that he is ravenous.

"Go ahead," Hannibal says. "I've already eaten."

While he eats Hannibal putters, shuffling books that have been artfully stacked on tables, rearranging the exquisite bouquets in their delicate vases, twitching aside the heavy curtains to let more light in. He is so ordinarily self-assured that Will find this nervous energy contagious and shortly pushes his plate aside, his stomach rebelling.

"I apologise for intruding on your morning," he says.

"I am unused to morning guests," Hannibal admits. He sits across from Will in the chair he usually commands during their sessions. "How did you sleep?"

"I think I dreamt." Will frowns. He can't remember. "I slept fine though."

"Good dreams?" Hannibal inquires mildly.

He shrugs. "I don't put much stock in dream analysis, Dr Lecter."

"I won't ask you to recount them, then," Hannibal says with a wry smile. "These kinds of things can seem absurd by the light of day. Although, sometimes it is better to air them out. Keep them too close to your chest and you risk being swallowed up by them."

"I don't have trouble separating dreams from reality," Will says.

"The philosophy applies to many areas of life. Man is a social creature. Without others to share his thoughts, his thinking becomes dangerously labyrinthine. A nasty spiral that ends in a full stop."

"We all have self destructive tendencies," Will mutters. "If you're trying to convince me into therapy, I'm already seeing someone."

Hannibal looks amused, perhaps more at the effort than the joke. He leans forward. "I am rather more inclined to convince you into a friendship," he says. "Your mind is quite an interesting place. I think you and I would have much to offer each other."

"Is that really a good idea?" Will's gaze drops to his unfinished breakfast and he fidgets, feeling restless. "I understand that as a therapist you're not supposed to foster personal ties with a patient."

"In the big book of rules it's certainly on the first page, as I imagine my colleague Dr Bloom is finding, but I think our circumstances are different."

He stiffens. "Alana wasn't at fault for that," he says, though the memories still lie more bitter than sweet on his tongue.

"Alana is her own person, perfectly capable of accepting her own share of responsibility for events." Hannibal straightens, his eyes fixed on Will. "But she hasn't, has she? That's not like the woman I know."

Will knows her, too, knows every look that comes into her eyes. She was hurt just as he was, but her wounds are of the heart, not the mind. Every reminder of him is like picking open an old scab to make it bleed anew. He doesn't blame her for the state of things between them. He's just--unhappy with it. Maybe one day he'll smooth over the jagged edges of their relationship into something he can bear to touch. "You will understand if I have reservations about fostering any kind of closeness between us."

"Naturally." Hannibal stands, tray in hand. "I will continue your therapy for as long as you wish."

Will nods jerkily. "I should go."  He can't get a handle on Dr Lecter. He is in turns oddly reserved and uncomfortably familiar. It is dizzying.

He's about to stand and make his excuses when his phone rings.

"Graham," he says, watching Hannibal's retreating back.

"Will. Did you get my email?"

"I haven't checked my email today."

Jack lets out an exasperated breath. "Don't you have email on that phone? Anyway I guess there's no easy way to say this. IA might be taking us off the case. I need you to talk to them."

"What?" A turmoil of reactions rises up in him abruptly. "Internal Affairs? What's this about?"

"I'll tell you everything when you get here."

Jack sounds apologetic and Will's anger spikes. "It's a day's drive to Quantico."

"Let me know when you get in." Jack hangs up. Will stuffs the phone into his pocket and goes to say goodbye to Hannibal.

"Therapy might be over sooner rather than later," he says.

"And the case?" Hannibal's expression is frustratingly bland.

"It depends. If the BSU leaves, another team will take over." He holds out his hand. "It's been... Interesting. Thank you."

Hannibal's grip is warm and dry. Will has the strangest feeling of déjà vu. "No, thank you," he says.

 

It's past noon when Will finally gets away. He ensures the case files will be available to the next team, if there is one--contrary to what he told Hannibal, he knows there is a strong possibility that the case will go cold and no one will be brought in to replace them.

He fields an unusual number of inquiries into why he is leaving. Detective Chau is pleased to see him go, but her partner looks distinctly unhappy. Three separate individuals who had nothing to do with the case approach him as he is packing up to ask about the state of things and request that he return to finish the investigation. It leaves him baffled.

"Both of the victims were valued members of the community," the Chief tells him, which Will does not think is the whole truth. "We are very concerned about this case. Your reputation precedes you, Agent Graham. Yours and Agent Crawford's both. I myself have reservations about handing this off to someone else."

"I'll do my best to see that you're in good hands," Will says. Personally, he sees this as a light at the end of the tunnel. Hannibal was right--fieldwork is repellant. He will grow to hate it before long. Already he feels like Jack is holding his head underwater.

 

By the time he reaches Quantico the sun is low in the sky and he's in no state to meet with Jack and sundry Federal bureaucrats, but he dutifully calls Jack anyway. He calls Alana, too, to tell her he'll be picking the dogs up.

"Not too late," she says.

"Maybe you should keep them overnight. I don't know how long Jack will keep me."

"On a Sunday?"

"Crime doesn't take the weekend off," he says. Alana doesn't laugh. "I'll come by tomorrow morning."

Jack meets him in the lobby to let him in, because Will turned in his keycard six months ago. He hasn't been here since before he was hospitalized.

"I haven't been completely honest with you," Jack says as they get into the elevator. "I guess neither has Colin. He didn't think it would pan out like this, I'm sure."

"You and Anderson have been... conspiring?" It shouldn't be a surprise. Still he feels a sudden sickness in the pit of his stomach at this bold admission of Jack's manipulation.

"Not so much conspiring. I asked him to bring you in on this case and he agreed it would be for the best to integrate you back into active duty. After that it all sort of fell into place. First Dr Lecter's involvement, then Mrs Kurosawa, then Singer... It just makes sense."

"I don't understand."

"Don't get me wrong, Will. I wasn't hoping for a murder. But I was expecting one." Jack stops them outside the elevator. "I was going to send you some material to initiate you into this case, but it turns out I didn't have to."

"What case?"

"The Chesapeake Ripper,” Jack says.

Will folds his arms and props himself up against the wall. He knows very little of the Chesapeake Ripper case; he was in police training when the Ripper surfaced. It was on their radar, of course, but it was a Federal issue. He’s learned since that it was one of Jack's premier cases--one of his most bitter failures.

"You think the Chesapeake Ripper killed our victims."

"The missing organs are his modus operandi," Jack says.

"The Ripper's pattern was a few bodies in intervals of a few months. His case has been cold for years. Besides," Will says, "Dr Chilton was convinced Abel Gideon was the Ripper."

"Chilton's opinion wasn't uncontested. Gideon didn't go on trial for any of the Ripper's murders." Jack fixes him with a pointed look. "You don't think it was him, do you?"

"I didn't," he admits. "But neither of us were lucid enough to know if that was the truth."

"The Ripper is still out there," Jack says firmly. "Believe me."

"What makes you think this is his work?" Will prods. Jack's intuition is rarely wrong. It's what makes him good at his job. On the other hand, sometimes he trusts it overmuch.

"I've been watching the news and the police reports. Missing and dead people are rampant around the county. I would guess that the Ripper is finding himself missing the media attention and wants on our radar. Maybe a little angry that Gideon was give credit for his work."

"Nothing a serial killer likes more than a little infamy," Will agrees. "But why them, and why now?"

"I don't know." Jack sighs. "The whys can wait. Will you back me up on this? We have a chance to catch this guy after more than a decade--we should hang onto the case with all we've got."

Will rubs his forehead, feeling a familiar headache approaching. Jack fought Chilton bitterly on naming Abel Gideon the Chesapeake Ripper; that he remembers. When Gideon escaped he was so named in the papers and he killed accordingly, but Gideon was at heart adaptable and Will didn't believe for a second that it was his head in the game. He, like Will, could so easily become someone else. The Chesapeake Ripper was just a mask for him.

"This is the kind of case that can ruin careers," he says. "Is this the hill you want to die on, Jack?"

Jack claps him on the back, satisfied. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

 

The meeting with Internal Affairs goes about as well as Will expects. They are not fond of either him or Jack, and are less than pleased with Jack's theory. Will, when asked for his opinion, looks at the table and gives his endorsement. It is slightly more plausible than the Kurosawa family hiring someone to kill one of their own, especially if the Bureau thought they might go after Hannibal to keep him from testifying at Abe’s trial.

"What did your talk with Higoto Kurosawa turn up?" Prurnell asks Jack.

"He denies culpability, of course. He seemed genuinely devastated by the turn of events. I think it’s unlikely the Kurosawas were involved in either death."

"I thought that Abe Kurosawa’s death had been ruled negligence," she says sharply.

'"We think it may be more complicated than that," Will interjects. "The security tape for the holding cell was tampered with, and the most recent victim was the officer on duty that night whom we had brought in to talk with."

Prurnell furrows her brow sharply. There's a long moment in which Will wonders if she won’t take them off the case after all, but at last she sighs and shakes her head. "There's not enough evidence by far. Graham, you shouldn't have been on this case to begin with. Jack..." her expression softens. "Don't spend your career chasing the one that got away."

 

As is Will’s luck, however, Internal Affairs doesn’t get the last say in the matter. Jack calls him the next day as Will is on his way to Alana’s.

"There's been another murder in a nearby town. Organs missing. The Ripper practically signed his name. Prurnell okay-ed us to go back."

A dull ache blooms in the back of his head. The killer hasn’t let them off the hook; he was only just getting started. "Now?"

"Yes, now," Jack says. “I’ll meet you there.”

He negotiates an hour to drive out to Alana’s house and see the dogs, though he knows it’s bad form to keep the crime scene waiting. Jack doesn’t have much choice but to agree.

The dogs bowl him over in their enthusiasm and he laughs, taking comfort in their exuberance. Alana watches from the doorway, her expression stormy. He avoids her eyes and instead watches the newest pup for signs of integration into the rest, how she defers to the senior dogs, her gangly canter around them. She came from a rough house, but she’s doing well. He scratches behind her ears.

“They missed you,” Alana says.

“I missed them.” He pats Peach on her head and she scampers off. “Will you watch them for a while longer?”

She presses her lips together. “Yes, Will. Your dogs are always welcome here, you know that.”

They like her, too. Will has always appreciated that about her. She’s good with animals. Maybe a little indulgent, gives them more love than discipline, but she’s a good dog-sitter. He sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose under his glasses.

“Thanks.”

“At least visit Abigail before you go,” she says.

He nods and turns away. He won't--he can't see Abigail. He feels like he needs to package this case up and put it away first. He's felt the touch of death again and he won't let her be infected with its rot.


	5. Chapter 5

This murder is different from the first two. Will can smell it when he enters the crime scene. They’re in a field on the edge of the quiet town, aptly named Phoenix Grove. What past demons will be resurrected alongside the Chesapeake Ripper? he wonders.

The kill itself is neatly done: a bullet to the head. "Rifle," Zeller informs him, reinstated to his usual place alongside Katz and Price. "From a distance. He's an excellent shot."

"What a message," Will murmurs. Are they the hunters or the hunted in this scenario? "He's playing the game now."

"Christ on a cross?" Beverly Katz posits, hands on her hips as she stands with them. "Seems a bit too... kitschy, doesn't it?"

"Not Christian, are you?" says Zeller waspishly.

"No, she's right," says Price. "I was on Jack's team the first round we went this guy. He's melodramatic, but he thinks he has exquisite taste. Obvious religious imagery is out of character for him."

"What's that on his head?" Will asks suddenly, stepping forward.

"Funny you should ask..." Zeller trails off.

The top of the victim's skull has been cut off, and the brain has been scooped out and replaced. What Will thought was on his head is actually inside it.

"Straw," he says, pinching it between his fingers. "It's a scarecrow."

"Is that better or worse than a crucifix?" Katz wonders in the answering silence.

"Better." Jack comes up behind them. "A complicated message means he wants to play a complicated game. Which in turn means he'll give us a chance to catch him before he goes to ground."

"I guess a crucifix does have a kind of finality to it," says Katz.

"Until the resurrection," Price points out.

Will tunes them out. Jack is right in one sense, but he's not sure if that's really 'better'.

He steps back through the tall, stiff grass. The field is swarming with FBI photographers and scattered among them are Phoenix Grove people, looking bewildered. They can't have gotten more than a few hours to investigate before the Feds came down on them like crows to carrion—which, Will supposes, is an apt metaphor in this instance.

It’s impossible to tell which direction the killer came from now that there are boots on the ground, but the road to the north is busier so he assumes it’s not that one.

Here at the shoulder of the western road, past the ditch full of rushes and mud and chirruping frogs, beyond the brush and grass, with the body only barely visible above a haze of gold, he can shut everything out and just see.

 

The sun is high, too high, but it’s almost better to do this in the daytime—almost sweeter. He lifts his quarry out of the vehicle and puts him on his feet, unbinding his arms and removing his blindfold. No need to handicap him, he is already disoriented and afraid. His breath comes in short, sharp pants. His legs stutter like a foal’s.

It’s over quickly, at least for the prey. He gives the man a head start, but there is no challenge in this hunt. Nothing like the one to come. A shudder of excitement passes over him. He steadies his breathing and raises the rifle to his shoulder to dispense the bullet.

The quarry falls. For the hunter remains the task of butchering—and stuffing. But the victim he approaches is not the same one he felled. This man is older, old enough to have a wife and a young daughter. He flips the body with the toe of his shoe. The eyes are open, pale and luminous. Breath rattles in the man’s chest. His lungs are filling with blood from the bullet wound in his chest but he is not yet dead.

“Now you see me,” he rasps.

Will clutches the scalpel in one trembling hand and lifts Hobbs’ shirt to expose his pale fish belly. The blade slips into him as easily as breathing.

“Now I don’t,” he whispers.

Hobbs laughs and gasps and the noise becomes the voices around Will, and he looks up. He’s kneeling in the dusty soil at the scarecrow’s feet. Only Jack remains, Price and Zeller having been driven off by superstition. Jack observes from a distance as usual, superstitious in his own way. Will could have told him it made no difference but there’s only so much logic to go around at the BSU. He of all people understands that.

“It was broad daylight. No witnesses?” He speaks before Jack can ask him.

“Podunk town like this? Not even a couple of cows. The farmer didn’t notice anything until yesterday.”

“The farmer checks out?” Of course he does. Unless he’s a pig farmer—but the Ripper isn’t in the business of making bodies disappear.

“Just tell me what you’ve got,” Jack says.

Will stands up, avoiding his searching look. The disease of murder is eating away at him already. “I’m afraid we’ll have to do this the old fashioned way.”

Jack curses and pulls his hat down over his brow. Will grits his teeth and follows him off the field, preparing for a lecture. Jack stops at the curb where his car is parked and says, “Are you being deliberately obtuse or do you really have nothing?”

Will recognizes it for a peace offering. Jack doesn’t like infighting—mostly because he’s used to his people doing things his way, but the sentiment is honest.

“A bit of both,” he admits.

“Well, get your head on straight.”

“My head’s on as straight as it will go.” Will shrugs, partly out of irreverence, partly frustration.

“Are you telling me that you don’t have what it takes?” Jack folds his arms and leans against his vehicle. Will has always had trouble disappointing him. He’s Will’s mentor as much as he is a friend. These days, however, doubt chews on the tail of every decision he makes. He doesn’t want to explain the conflict between his wants to Jack, especially when half of those feelings could be Jack’s in the first place and Will wouldn’t have a clue.

Whoever is pulling his strings has a sense of humour he doesn’t appreciate.

“I thought I said so pretty explicitly in Windham, but you keep bringing me to crime scenes,” he points out.

“Okay.” Jack sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Okay, Will. God help me, I didn’t think you’d ever willingly take on deskwork. If it’s what you want, I’ll leave you with Anderson.”

“But?”

“But not until the case is done.”

“Which comes with the nasty implication that you had intended to keep me after the case was finished,” says Will.

“I lost my best agent when you went into that hospital, Will. What should I have done? Left your mind to rot in the filing room?” Jack opens the car door. “I think you’ll find I’m trying to do what’s best for you, too.”

 

Evening washes over him cool and gentle, like a baptismal river, though Will knows its waters are deceptively lovely and come night he will be dashed on the rocks of his dreams. He isn’t wrong.

He wakes and shucks off his soaked undershirt, reaching for his phone. He checks the time. It’s three AM—anyone he might want to call will not appreciate the intrusion. The dark crowds him and the walls seem to expand to hold more of the stifling night air. Out of habit he touches his forehead, but he’s not feverish. It’s just an ordinary night terror. He sleeps fitfully until six AM, when he awakens suddenly and is hit by the turbulent and vivid emotions evoked by dreaming: the need, the bone-deep and visceral hunger to kill.

He rolls out of bed and stumbles to the bathroom and wretches into the sink. Not even bile, just a sick, weak-kneed feeling and a headache.

 

Will returns to Windham that day to make use of the police records there. He isn’t expecting to find much, and he doesn’t. Still, investigative work should be done in the correct order. Before driving back to meet Jack at the Phoenix Grove station, he stops in at Hannibal’s flower shop. Good sense tells him that he should leave their relationship as it was: professional, and short. But he gets a funny feeling in his gut when he thinks about doing that. It seems something is unfinished between them.

The shop is empty. Hannibal arranges bouquets from an assortment of delicate, lacy ferns and white flowers. He looks up when Will enters.

“Will!” He sets the flowers down and wipes his hands on his apron, coming around the counter. “What brings you back?”

Will hangs back. “There was another murder. Even Internal Affairs couldn’t argue for keeping us away from the case now.”

“That’s good news and bad news,” says Hannibal contemplatively. “Now you have the opportunity for further therapy. I assume that’s why you came by.”

“Now I have need of further therapy,” Will corrects him, which is an unfortunate truth. Hannibal doesn’t look displeased by this, though. If Will were honest with himself, which he is frequently not, he isn’t completely unenthused at the idea of further time in Hannibal’s company, either.

He knows there’s a term for people who become attached to their therapists: emotionally dependant, as Alana would say. For someone who has trouble forming connections, she told him, it was normal to feel himself becoming close to the person with whom he shared his emotions.

“My door is open.” Hannibal spreads his hands. Will notices that his nail beds are stained a rusty brown by some unnameable plant residue, though the rest of his hands are characteristically clean. “Tonight, the same time?”

“Yes.” Will contemplates the bridal bouquet. “Thank you.”

 

Phoenix Grove is eager to help. He and Jack sit with a stack of unsolved cases each well into the afternoon and pull out at least ten in the last four years which could fit their quarry, six of those in chronological groups of three.

“There were more in Windham,” says Jack.

“I only found two unsolved cases in which body parts were missing.” Will flips open the next file. His head is swimming with crime scene photos. He realises that his is a crisis more suited to a newbie in his first month on the job—in some ways he thinks maybe it’s overdue. He’s been a pro since day one in the Baltimore PD. Death couldn’t touch him; not in ways that mattered. Not until Abigail’s father. Now death digs clammy fingers into every private corner of his head. His physical infection is gone, but the infection of the mind remains.

“And the rest of the cases?” Jack asks.

“The rest?”

“The unsolved ones. Did you check the closed cases?”

Will raises both eyebrows at his open file. “I didn’t think it was necessary. Do you?”

“Singer could have falsified records without much trouble,” Jack says.

“But would he? Seems like a lot of effort to go through on behalf of a serial killer.”

“Psychopaths can be charming. I think it’s worth looking into. All we need is one clue to go on.”

 

But if you’re meticulous, the kind of killer who has no compunctions, it’s easier than any civilian would like to think to pass through the cracks your whole damn career, as Will well knows. Cops and Feds alike hate crime TV and media because both make it look like catching a serial killer is just a matter of picking some seemingly insignificant detail out of a crime scene and ordering an arrest warrant. The truth is a lot more mundane and frustrating. There are plenty of clues in the potential Ripper cases—the problem is where they lead, which mostly turns out to be nowhere.

And then again, not every serial killer has patterns or leaves clues. Only the ones people read about in the newspapers. Some departments would call the BSU lucky.

After the fifth unproductive phone call to a witness who’s not too eager to talk, Will sets the phone down and takes two Aspirin for his headache. He’s starting to second guess himself. The profiler on this particular case—an outside agent—fingered the suspect as mid-twenties, attention seeking, with unresolved oedipal issues. Will had been sure it was a hack job of profiling but now he’s wondering if he and Jack are just looking for breadcrumbs where none remain.

He shakes his head, trying to dislodge his uncertainty.

Outside of the small office they’ve been loaned he finds it is early evening and someone has left a carafe of coffee on the table in the hallway. He drinks a cup and tries to clear his head. He should leave. Not that he’s a stranger to long days, but he has his appointment, which is as good an excuse as any.

“Bright and early tomorrow morning then,” is all Jack says.

“Sure,” Will replies.

 

A stifling heat has rolled over Phoenix Grove while he was inside and it’s muggy and unpleasant outside the station. He’s instantly sticky and damp and the unforgiving sun beats down on the back of his neck. By the time he passes the sign indicating Windham in ten miles he’s looking forward to Hannibal’s air conditioning.

Hannibal has forgone his usual three piece suit in the heat and wears only a creamy cotton shirt with what Will assumes is a luxurious thread count from the perfect way it rucks up at his elbows without creasing overmuch. Will hangs his blazer up and rolls his sleeves up his arms, noticing how Hannibal watches him with a look one might reserve for mice if one were a particularly hungry owl. Nonchalantly, he also unbuttons the top two buttons of his shirt. The cool air laps at his bared skin. Hannibal’s gaze sharpens.

“Wine?” He offers as Will follows him in.

“Not coffee?”

“Wine is better for insomnia.” Hannibal ushers him into the sitting room. “Caffeine fosters poor sleep and bad dreams.”

He reappears shortly with two glasses, a bottle, and a decanter. Will knows little of wine beyond what he likes but he recognises this as being excellent, heady stuff, like most of what Hannibal has offered him over the short course of their relationship.

“How do you feel about being back?” Hannibal prompts him when Will lets the silence stretch on. Although he tends to like the end result of therapy, he’s never particularly liked the act itself and he finds that he would be content to sit quietly and drink wine. It would be a waste of both their time, however, and the exorbitant fee the FBI is paying for this session.

“Conflicted,” Will replies. What other feeling exists? He sighs. “Jack is pushing hard on this.”

“You don’t want to disappoint him, naturally.”

“Alana told me—” he sets the wine glass down and rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. The heat of the wine rises in him already, diluting his capillaries and bringing a flush to his skin. “She said he would run me into the ground. She’s said it before. I didn’t want to believe her then.”

“And do you now?” Hannibal inquires.

“I’m not sure,” says Will. “Is he asking more of me, or am I just willing to give less?”

Hannibal considers him and Will fidgets under his scrutiny. “It is a universal truth that nothing makes one feel more alive than a brush with death. This case agrees with you. You are more bright-eyed than when you first arrived.”

“I resent that it does,” says Will. Casework is a special kind of motivator. It’s true that crime gives him purpose, satiates some deep-seated need that doubtless, given time, Dr Lecter would root out and hold to the light. It is no comfort that most of the FBI is the same way.

“Tell me about the case,” Hannibal suggests. “Tell me what you see.”

“You know a fair bit more than the average civilian already, Dr Lecter. I don’t know if that’s prudent, considering the crime and those involved.”

“What I know doesn’t matter.” Hannibal waves a hand in dismissal of his protest. “I am concerned with what you know. I want a look inside that part of your head you have reserved for murderers and psychopaths.”

“You wouldn’t like it in there.” His mouth twists up. “I don’t.”

But he spins the stem of his wine glass between his fingers and after a moment says, “I can see him, though I don’t want to. If I just look a certain way his shape becomes clear.”

Hannibal leans forward. “And what is his shape, Will?”

“I won’t look, Dr Lecter.” Will shakes his head. “I’m sure neither you nor I nor Jack would know what to do with that information. Why do I need to know the nature of a man to catch him? There are other ways.”

He finishes his glass and Hannibal pours him another. They sit without speaking for a while as Will turns over the things he said to examine them, as if clues escape his mouth unknowingly. If he knows the costume the Ripper dons, surely he has inside him information which would help the investigation. If only he can separate the two. There has to be a way to see the man without becoming him. Therein, of course, lies the problem of Will’s entire career.

It might be, he thinks, that Hannibal could help him with that.

“Jack believes our unsub is someone he’s hunted before,” he says. “The media gave him the nickname ’The Chesapeake Ripper’. You’ve probably heard of him. We were reinstated because new evidence suggests that Jack is right.”

Hannibal frowns. “Do you agree with Jack?”

“Oh, unequivocally.” Will says. “The Ripper’s hallmarks are distinctive. I don’t believe it’s a copycat. The problem lies in catching him before he gets bored of us. It’s easy to open the DMV and pick out a coherent array of personality disorders, but in the end none of that really matters. It can do more harm than good if we have no evidence to go on.”

“Do you truly believe that? Your numbers don’t lie—call it evidence or call it intuition, your rate of closure on cases has been truly astounding in the past.”

“Profiling only goes so far,” says Will.

“I would argue that what you do is more than profiling.” Hannibal stands and paces to the window, drawing aside the curtains. The sun is only just now setting. Vermillion streaks are seared into the sky like open wounds. “I was a consultant on the Chesapeake Ripper case back in the day; I imagine Jack has not told you. I could not see him to Jack’s satisfaction. My profile was incomplete. I feel, however, that the Ripper has been waiting for someone like you.”

“You were a consultant?” Jack hasn’t mentioned it—indeed, Hannibal hasn’t once come up in conversation. “But he hasn’t asked you to consult again?”

“I imagine he feels he doesn’t need the advantage of an esteemed psychiatrist when he has you.” Hannibal manages to make this sound sinister rather than flattering.

This knowledge puts Hannibal in something of a new light; it isn’t difficult, come to think of it, to picture him flipping dispassionately through gruesome crime scene photos in an office in Quantico. “Tell me what you know about the Ripper, Dr Lecter,” he suggests.

Hannibal turns to him. Silhouetted against the window, his features are little more than a blur. “Are you a religious man, Will?”

He shrugs. “Lapsed, I suppose,” he says. He hasn’t been to church since he was a child.

“You may want to consider church this Sunday. You will need God to hear your prayers when the Ripper kills again.”

 

Later as he is leaving Hannibal hands him an envelope with his name on it.

“I am hosting a dinner party in a few days to commemorate Noriko and her family. I would be honoured if you would come.”

“Ah,” says Will hesitantly. “Thank you.”

He won’t attend, of course. He doesn’t do well at parties. In his truck he opens the invitation anyway and reads it. The thick paper is soft to the touch. He considers how steady a hand would have to be to shape the letters so precisely and with such a flourish. In his head, the memory of Noriko’s murder drifts to the surface like a bloated body in the river.

 

Of course Will can’t find an appropriate time in the following days to decline Hannibal’s invitation, thus it hangs over him, spectre-like, as he and Jack dig through records. Both Windham and the nearby Finch River turn up a good number of potential Ripper victims. Besides vics, however, they don’t turn up a single lead.

“I hate working cold cases,” Jack grumbles. “The locals can never be relied on to record the relevant details. Look at this, five pages of autopsy and barely one on the crime scene.”

“What about this one?” Will slides a file across the table. There are patterns within patterns to a Ripper killing; after a point it runs together like a fractal, setting his head spinning. But this one has caught his eye: a glitch in the otherwise seamless equation. It’s a closed case from Windham, dated seven years earlier. One of the earliest they’ve found.

The victim is a twenty six year old man, native of Baltimore, with a long list of petty misdemeanours. Nothing that would have warranted hard time, but plenty of violence; domestic abuse, assault with a weapon, and property damage. A run-of-the-mill thug, except that under his list of known associates is Ichiro Kurosawa.

Jack frowns at the file. “It could be nothing,” he says after a while. “A coincidence.”

“Yes,” Will agrees. But he knows what a lead smells like and so does Jack.

“Higoto Kurosawa won’t appreciate being brought in for questioning a second time, especially not concerning his number one son.”

“The FBI makes plenty of house calls,” Will says.

“Well,” says Jack. “I’ll give him a call. No sense in driving all the way back to Baltimore.”

He exits into the hall. Will flips the file around and runs over it again. Kurosawa isn’t likely to give anything up, being a smart and probably paranoid man with a good lawyer. A person doesn’t get to his position in the slimy underbelly of Baltimore’s business sector without a healthy dose of paranoia. Will doesn’t expect Jack to get far.

He also doesn’t believe in coincidences. That leaves door number three.

He flags down Detective Chau, who looks sour and has since they set up shop here.

“I need information on someone named Mamoru Shiro,” he tells her. “I’d like access to your computer database.”

“Sure,” says Chau. “You can use one of the kids’ over there. I’ll get you the guest login information.”

“How often does the station have guests who use the system?” Will asks, and her eyebrows pull together like all of her annoyance at his presence is concentrated on that spot just above her nose.

“We have folk like you in more than you’d think,” she tells him.

She logs him in and leaves him to his own devices. Will has a laptop but it’s in his hotel room and he wants a look around the Windham Station system. It’s easy enough to counterfeit a physical file—or just get rid of it—but digital files leave more lasting traces. If Singer did any spring cleaning for the Ripper before he was killed, Will wants to know. He pulls up Shiro’s information while he runs a recovery program that may not be strictly legitimate in the background.

The file itself mirrors its physical counterpart. The program, however, turns up something interesting. The first thing that catches his eye is Noriko Kurosawa’s name. It’s her maiden name, Yamachi, and it’s attached to a restraining order against Shiro filed a little under ten years ago. Directly preceding Shiro’s death there’s a violation of the restraining order and a court date to which neither the defendant nor the plaintiff showed up.

“So,” Will murmurs. Shiro tracks Noriko out to Windham when he finds out she’s getting married. Shortly afterward he’s strung up on a meat hook and gutted like an animal. That at least suggests the Chesapeake Ripper knew Noriko, collated by the lack of a struggle at the scene of her murder.

In fact he knew her well enough to kill for her, Will thinks. Did she abet the murder?

He imagines Noriko ten years younger, marrying a man like Abe Kurosawa—a man she barely knows, troubled and violent. Would she not be flattered by the attentions of a serial killer?

“Agent Graham.” It’s Chief Anders. She leans over the desk, a worried furrow in her brow. “Officers Jay and Rios just called in two stiffs at the park outside of town. Agent Crawford is on his way already.”

Two more. Will stands, his heart pounding. They’re running out of time to catch the Ripper.

When he moves out from behind the desk the Chief blocks his way. “Is there something you’d like to let me in on, Agent? The two of you seem eager to go off after an unrelated crime scene.”

Of course, Will realises, Jack hasn’t told her. He likes to keep his hand close to his chest where the local PD are concerned. Will, on the other hand, finds deception… dangerous. A gateway behaviour. He knows the lie can become truth if a person says it earnestly, and with frequency, but rarely in a desirable or predictable way.

Will braces himself on the table. “Have you heard of the Chesapeake Ripper, Anders?”

“I have.” She crosses her arms. “A killer back in the early noughts, credited with nine murders. Never caught, right? I heard he almost cost the FBI one of their top guys—ah. Right. Jack Crawford.”

“Yes.”

She looks disappointed. “And the Kurosawas? Singer?”

“The same killer. Not exactly the Ripper’s methodology but…” he makes a tipping motion from side to side with his hand. “The same stench.”

The hard lines of her face sharpen as she takes this in. “If I have heard of your reputation I can’t help but imagine the Chesapeake Ripper has, as well. Are you chasing him, then, or is he chasing you, Mr Graham? Innocent people are dead. Be sure you know the difference. And please let Agent Crawford know that I would like a chat with him later.”

 

He takes his truck through town instead of around, driving by Hannibal’s shop. He’s not sure of his intentions, but he has a vague idea that he will ask Hannibal to accompany him and to offer his insight. He feels as if he is toeing the edge of a precipice. Like everything from here on out could go either way with a change in the breeze. The problem, he has decided, is that he doesn’t know which way he favours.

The flower shop is closed. An apologetic note hangs on the door, the sight of which reminds Will abruptly that Dr Lecter’s dinner party is tonight. Disappointed, he takes off for the park.

Jack and forensics are already picking through the crime scene like carrion birds, but Jack looks dispirited.

“The scoop?” Will asks him, donning his gloves.

“No obvious cause of death. A man and a woman, married but not to each other. The crime scene is as-is,” Jack says.

Will turns and follows him down the gravel path. This forest must be the same one Dr Lecter’s house overlooks, he realises with a sudden sharp burst of anxiety.

The bodies lie face down in a creek, side by side, facing upstream. They are prone on a bed of flowers and naked save for their respective wedding rings. Flesh has been carved from both bodies in chunks. Water has pooled up at their heads and spills out around them, nudging a few flower heads up onto the shallow sandy banks. Will slips and dunks his foot in the creek as he climbs down and he curses roundly.

“This guy is really harping on the religious symbolism,” says Katz, alerted to their presence.

“He is?” Jack asks, bemused.

“Naked in the water suggests baptism to me,” Price agrees.

“All those white flowers,” Will says. “It smells so sweet.” The perfume has been dampened by the water but it’s still heavy and sickening. “You said they were married?”

“One of the officers recognised them,” Jack says. “Part of his bocce club with their spouses.”

“They were having an affair?” He crouches in the shallow water. “Well, our first line of investigation will have to be club members.”

“Of course,” says Jack. “Do you want a moment alone here?”

Will sighs. “No.” He doesn’t need time to see what the Ripper has laid out for him. “The white flowers symbolise purity, and the water, rebirth. The Ripper disapproved of their affair and gave them absolution through death. It’s quite a respectful killing and tableau, considering what we know of him. He has no problem treating humans like one would treat slaughterhouse pigs, and yet they have no marks to indicate a violent death and he gave them a burial, so to speak, that he clearly felt was meaningful.” He makes an all-encompassing gesture. “Thus I would surmise that he knew and respected them, insofar as a psychopathic serial killer can respect anyone.”

“All that within less than a minute of getting here?” Katz arches her eyebrows at him. She hangs back, listening in. “Either you’ve gained superpowers or he’s getting sloppy.”

“The latter,” says Will.

“That’s right.” Jack nods slowly. “If Abe, Noriko and singer were one triad then these are number two of second triad. That may mean the Ripper is planning to go to ground again.”

“Meaning we have a very limited window in which to identify him, and even if we manage to much of our evidence will likely be circumstantial unless we get lucky.” Will stands. “Take a look, Jack. Puncture wounds in the neck. Our killer has access to lethal drugs.”

Jack bends over and lifts the woman’s hair off her neck. He straightens, his expression grim. “I want to know what he used,” he tells Katz. “Will, get that list of club members. I’ll see you at the station.”

Will rubs his neck as Jack goes, feeling the phantom prick of a needle.

 

Will gets directions to the recreation centre from Officer Rios. Before heading back into town he takes a side trip.

He pulls up the wide gravel driveway into the shade of the stately house and is disturbed to find upon exiting the car that the sweet smell of death has followed him from the woods.

No, he corrects himself, it is only Dr Lecter’s clematis, which clambers up the arch of the trellis beside the car. For the first time he notices white and burgundy irises in the neat flower beds beside the house, and heather growing under the shade of a red-leafed japanese maple. Further, beyond the house, the late rhododendrons are in full bloom, resplendent in the afternoon sun.

He rings the doorbell instead of knocking, and when Hannibal answers he looks surprised to see Will. He’s wearing an apron which is stained with gore and he braces one elbow on the doorframe, a smile alighting on his face. It is so unexpected an expression that the sharp relief Will feels at seeing him gives way to warmth, which to his horror Will feels rising in his face.

“Will, you are quite early I’m afraid.” Hannibal’s eyes are bright. For a moment Will feels ridiculous for ever having thought him sinister or unreadable. He looks so very alive.

“I can’t stay,” Will says, fixing his gaze on Hannibal’s shirt buttons.

“Ah.” There is disappointment in his tone.

“There’ve been more deaths, and I have to work. They were… very close to here,” he says as if in explanation.

“Ah.” Fingers on his chin. Hannibal is in his personal space, his hands too firm. “You were concerned. I’m touched.”

Indeed he sounds pleased. Will searches his eyes briefly for sincerity. Hannibal releases his face and his touch lingers, the heat of it suffusing Will’s skin.

“Dr Lecter—” he begins. “It isn’t friendship you’re after, is it?”

Will can read social cues; he generally chooses not to. On the whole it’s easier if people assume he can’t. But it would be disingenuous to pretend that he doesn’t know that Hannibal is applying a certain amount of charm in a certain way, or that his eyes linger on Will’s bare wrists and collar more than is appropriate. And he wouldn’t deny that it in turn makes him hot with anticipation. But it is not always advisable to gorge himself on every hungry look thrown his way.

“No, indeed,” Hannibal says, sounding almost regretful. “I would credit you with being perceptive but it is a needless compliment and I admit I have not been terribly subtle. Does it make you uncomfortable?”

“Yes.” Like he’s going to fill up with the force of it until the breath is pushed from his lungs.

“I cannot stop myself from being attracted to you, Will. However, I would happily recommend you another therapist, perhaps one in Baltimore. I would have regardless when you left. On the other hand—” Hannibal straightens. “I’m also capable of keeping a strictly professional relationship, if you prefer.”

Will nods. “I do prefer. I have no desire for another therapist.”

“Very well,” says Hannibal. “I’m sorry you had to miss the party. Tomorrow, then?”

“Tomorrow,” says Will firmly.

 

He makes it to the recreation centre ten minutes before it closes and the flushed receptionist demands a warrant before she will give him a list of members for the bocce club.

“It’s confidential information,” she sputters, and Will is too exhausted to argue with her. He leaves empty-handed. Back at the station Jack has him doing paperwork until his vision blurs, dissolving the words he’s writing into sharp-edged smudges of ink. Jack is on the phone with IA when Will finally gives up writing the report. Will catches his eye and jerks his thumb at the door, but Jack shakes his head and raises a finger. Wait.

The specifics of the very one-sided conversation go over Will’s head. Jack makes a lot of aborted attempts at constructing responses and is eventually bullied into monosyllables.

“Fine, fine,” he says. “Just send me the papers and I’ll—yes, I do think it’s the right thing. For chrissakes, Prurnell, what do you want from me?”

There’s a pause. Will stirs his fourth cup of coffee glumly. Sleep looks distant.

“Okay,” Jack says testily, and hangs up. He sets the phone down and addresses Will. “Oversight wants me back in Baltimore tomorrow. We’ll have to do this remotely. Make sure you send me the coroner’s report when it comes in.”

“I’m staying?” Will frowns, not liking the implication. They are a team. Will doesn’t head investigations for a reason. It was part of the agreement when he left his old team to work for the BSU, and Jack has never gone back on it.

“I’ll have your back,” Jack reassures him. “Just send me everything you get and I’ll send you whatever I can dig up at the office.”

“I don’t like this,” Will says. “They’re not sending anyone else out here to lead the investigation?”

Jack sits back in his chair with a sigh, deflating. “I think they’re expecting this one to blow over without any resolution. The media is having a field day back in the city—Freddie Lounds got a hold of some intel, knows it’s you working the case. None of it’s good. I have to make some compromises, smooth some ruffled feathers.”

“We should have sued her for slander when we could.” A familiar bile rises in his throat. Lounds doesn’t publish much in mainstream media. She doesn’t like to dilute her brand. But Will has been the subject of more articles than he’d like to remember thanks to a few careless comments in the beginning of his career.

“We were a little busy doing damage control after you shot Gideon,” Jack says drily. “Now we have to make do with what the Bureau allows us.”

“A tighter leash for you, but not for me?” Will wonders.

“I accepted responsibility for you when I took you on,” Jack says. “I wouldn’t change what I did. My actions and your actions still saved lives, even if Internal Affairs disapproves. Look, Will, we’re a good team. We can still catch the Ripper.”

“Sometimes I think Prurnell has a point,” says Will, but Jack only scowls.

“Get it together,” he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i suppose this chapter is easter-appropriate, so happy easter =w=


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: this chapter contains explicit sex and situations of dubious consent

He’s still waiting on the coroner’s report by midday the next day so he goes back to the rec centre and strong-arms the records out of the receptionist, who finally gives him a list of names. She transfers them painstakingly from the ledger onto a sheet of copy paper. She shoots him nervous looks as he waits. He probably looks sufficiently murderous after a sleepless night.

In truth he’s almost asleep on his feet. Snippets of dreams keep coming to him—a garden of white flowers growing from corpses, Abigail holding a hunting rifle as she sights a fox, telling him something in a sweet young voice as he holds her arms steady. Memories that aren’t his. When the receptionist finally finishes she clears her throat, startling him out of his daze.

“Thanks,” he says belatedly. He scans the list in his truck. There are five or six married couples listed, by their last names, and a host of singles—one of which is Dr Hannibal Lecter. His title is finished with a flourish, something not afforded to anyone else on the list.

May as well kill two birds with one stone, Will thinks.

He pulls up the main drive and slows. Something is not right.

Squad cars box in the flower shop and a small crowd has gathered. Crime scene tape is strung around the entrance. Will ducks underneath and pushes through the door. The shop has been devastated; flowers are scattered everywhere underfoot among broken pots and vases. The cooler on one side of the shop has been pushed askew and the front window is cracked. The impact point is dotted with fresh blood. Will’s stomach twists.

“Hannibal,” he calls, and then louder, “Dr Lecter, are you here?”

Detective Chau appears in the doorway leading to the back room. “Excuse me, you can’t—oh. Agent Graham. What are you doing here?”

“I was in the area.” Glass crunches under his boot. “What happened? Where’s Dr Lecter?”

“He’s with the ambulance out back. He’s fine,” she adds, “just shaken up. He was attacked.”

Her eyes dart to the wall behind the counter and Will follows her gaze. Three bullet holes puncture the drywall like sinister punctuation marks.

“Someone tried to kill him.”

“Not your Ripper,” says Chau. “Probably in relation to the Kurosawas.”

“Why?” Michiko’s murder won’t go to trial now that her father is dead, which means Hannibal is no longer a witness.

She frowns. “Noriko Kurosawa and Dr Lecter were quite… close. One could see how a vengeful person might blame him for the breakdown of that family. Of course none of us predicted this, but maybe we should have.”

She turns away and he follows her to the back room, which remains largely unscathed. “And the attacker?” he asks.

“Gone,” she says shortly. “Not a trace. We’ve put out an APB.”

In the alley behind the shop Hannibal sits on the back of the ambulance, his pink shirt stained with smudges of blood. The shoulder of his shirt is torn where a bullet grazed him. His muscles bunch as he twists to clean the wound while an ambulance attendant hovers nearby with a roll of bandages. She shoots Detective Chau a desperate look.

“He won’t let me touch it,” she says in a low voice. Hannibal looks up, his face betraying no emotion.

“Will, hello,” he says, as if Will’s presence were expected.

“I see the ‘Doctor’ in front of your name isn’t just for show,” says Will. “Should you be doing that?”

“I was a surgeon for many years.” A faint smile pulls at his lips. “You don’t need to worry.”

He takes the bandages from the woman hovering next to him.

“Could you give us a minute?” Will says to Detective Chau, who raises an eyebrow. “I’m not interested in interfering with your investigation, I’d just like to speak with Dr Lecter privately.”

He knows he sounds on edge. She nods shortly and gestures for the ambulance attendant to follow her. Hannibal passes the bandages to him.

“Do you have much medical training, then?” he asks.

“Basic first aid and first responder,” says Will. He unravels the white cloth and finds his hands are shaking. “It’s not necessary for FBI but I was a police officer first. More of a humble beginning than surgery, I’m afraid.”

“And yet we are not unevenly matched in mind,” says Hannibal.

“You’ll have to take your shirt off.” Hannibal is watching him, he can feel the weight of his gaze like a hand on him.

The wound isn’t bad; all things considered it could be a lot worse. It’s shallow, ragged, but not bleeding heavily. Will wraps it quickly. His heart thumps like a rabbit in his ribcage. Hannibal turns toward him and says, “What brought you here? Not that your timing isn’t impeccable.”

“Hold this.” Will fumbles for the pin. First responder training had always sent his scores plummeting. In a medical crisis he’s about as useful as a blunt object to the head. “I came to ask about flowers.”

He’s too rattled to make an attempt at humour. As he pins the bandage in place Hannibal grips his hand firmly.

“I’m alright, Will,” he says. “I was lucky. As soon as I called the police he took off.”

Will shakes his head, pulling his hand away. “You should come into protective custody until they catch him.”

“I wouldn’t. To live in fear is not living at all,” he says, although his tone is facetious.

“It would be sensible,” Will snaps.

Hannibal pulls his shirt back on. He’s not quite as soft around the middle as Will expected; he has muscle under his pale stomach. His fingers are deft on the tiny buttons.

“I did have a bodyguard,” he says, and it takes Will a moment to realise that Hannibal is talking about him. “Unfortunately the FBI had better things for him to do. Don’t worry—I own a gun. I have no problem carrying it on my person.”

“If you see anything suspicious you should call my cellphone,” Will says.

“Just leave the number with my secretary.”

“Stop making jokes.” The bullet could easily have gone a foot to the right. Why didn’t it? Surely from point blank range a man was an easy target. His mind has no trouble supplying more vivid imagery.

Hannibal stands and grips his elbow. “I apologise. I am making light of a situation that could have been much worse.” They’re very close. Will drops his gaze to Hannibal’s collar. “Have dinner with me. I’ll cook for you—I promise you’ll enjoy it.” There’s a charming lilt to his words. He’s definitely flirting. “You can make up for having missed the party.”

Will takes a deep breath. “Alright.”

Hannibal’s hand slides from his elbow down the the small of his back in a wholly intimate way and Will’s breath stutters. His scent is thick and masculine. The touch of his hand is like a fever pulsing along his skin and making him shiver. He feels like a sparrow trapped in a cage of limbs—but he’s not. He knows like he knows the weight of a gun in his hand the danger that can rise in him so easily, and yet Hannibal is trusting Will not to turn on him. The knowledge makes him sick with exhilaration.

“Will,” Hannibal murmurs. Sandwiched between his heavy hand and the length of his body Will feels Hannibal hardening against his hip.

He takes a shaky breath. “Arousal is a normal reaction in the aftermath of danger, Dr Lecter.” But his words come out intimate, not clinical. “I don’t think this is—ah!”

Hannibal shifts so they are flush at the hips, his cock jutting into the crook of Will’s groin, his thigh imparting hot, steady friction.

“Come early tonight,” he says, his breath brushing the disarrayed curls around the shell of Will’s ear. “I’ll show you the garden. Then you can ask me about flowers.”

“Yeah, okay.” He’s going to shake out of his skin. There’s no answer but ‘yes’ to everything Hannibal proposes.

And suddenly Hannibal retreats. Gravel crunches under someone’s feet behind them.

“Dr Lecter, we’ll need to take your statement at the station.” Chau and her partner approach as Will half turns. He feels undone, as if he’s been split open and laid bare like a fish he might gut with his bare hands and a knife. Perhaps it’s obvious, because Chau furrows her brow at him and says, “You good, Agent Graham?”

“Fine,” Will says. “I’ll get out of your way.”

“Sure.”

 

He sits in his truck as the police come and go. The empty ambulance pulls around and the detectives’ car is close behind.

He should email Jack, just to keep him updated. He should tell Jack about Noriko’s connection to the Ripper via Mamoru Shiro, and maybe that he dreamt of drowning the night before, which he hasn’t since he was sick. What else does Jack need to know? That they’re no longer colleagues, perhaps not even friends? He puts the truck in reverse and backs out onto the road. Getting out of Windham only takes fifteen minutes.

The back roads here are paved but old, running alongside ancient farms and patches of wood, nothing much bigger than fifty head of cattle. The sun beats down and bakes him into his seat as he drives but he doesn’t open the window. Loose papers are stacked on the passenger seat and scattered across the floor. They’re copies of the case files from Phoenix Grove.

Thirty miles down the road he pulls over next to a fallow field and jerks off. It’s quick and furtive and he comes over his left hand, biting his knuckles. A low noise tears out of his throat and makes him shudder. Helplessly, he wants more.

A cow lows nearby, startling him, and he buttons his jeans back up. Nobody is around to see him. The farmhouse is a distant grey dot and the road is empty. It’s so like his home, a speck in a field at the ass-end of nowhere. If he had the luxury of time he would drive around.

He cracks the window, sticky with sweat and come. The air outside is no cooler than the air inside. The papers stir. He rescues the top sheet from the pile—it’s the list of club members from the rec centre. Will pulls his laptop out from under the seat, feeling at once alert and loose with satisfaction and wanting to get some work done. 

He works until his battery dies and a small herd has gathered at the fence. He gets out and stretches, wincing at the stiffness in his joints and the uncomfortable feeling of dried come sticking to his skin. He’ll have to shower and change. This is all a terrible idea, but he’ll undoubtedly go through with it anyway.

Will is not exactly attracted to Hannibal; he is arrogant, intimidating, and wears too artful of a mask. And yet he is honest enough to acknowledge that he has not been especially attracted to any of his sexual partners. Even Alana, who is objectively beautiful. People are attracted to him, and the attention is flattering, and he enjoys sex. And there are, admittedly, certain things about Hannibal which Will appreciates. His boldness, for one.

 

Will drives back into town in time to clean up and dig out something washed. He steam-irons the shirt and presses the trousers, feeling uncertain as to whether or not this could be considered a date. Any one word might not encompass the complexity of his thoughts on the matter. He leaves in the hotel room: his laptop, his gun, his case files, and after a moment’s hesitation, his phone.

Hannibal greets him at the door wearing something ostentatious and rather too bold for Will’s taste. He’s wearing cologne, but the scent of him is also of his house, as Will often finds is the case, and he does not compare the two favourably. Of course neither does he especially care; the realm of bespoke suits and fine cologne isn’t his.

“Don’t take your shoes off, we’ll go to the garden right away,” says Hannibal, donning his own wingtips. “Business first, if that is agreeable.”

Will is frankly surprised that Hannibal is willing to discuss the business of death today, but he makes no comment. “Your garden is impressive,” he says.

Indeed, Hannibal has led him around the side of the house to a lush and well cared for area of the property, fenced in by tasteful short hedges and trellises. The fruit trees out of bloom frame a pond set low in the landscape, which Will thinks must look spectacular in the spring but must also be difficult to clean. Hannibal leads him down the stone lined path to the bench by the pond. His hand rests in the small of Will’s back with clear intentions.

“I have spent most of the last seven years shaping it,” Hannibal tells him as they sit. “You can see that many of the trees are young still, but the pond is properly rooted and it is well landscaped. It is one of the things I will miss most when I leave.”

The pond glimmers in the evening light; he thinks it is probably deeper than it looks. “Why leave?”

“I have been considering it for a few months,” says Hannibal. “Now that Noriko is gone there is not much left for me here. As a young man I traveled. I am thinking of doing it again. But enough of me. What was it you wanted to ask me?”

He rearranges his legs to have the excuse to shift away from Hannibal’s casual touch. “Have you received any large orders for white flowers recently?”

“I do a number of wedding arrangements in the summer,” Hannibal says. “Is this to do with the bodies found in the forest?”

“How did you—” But of course the story will have made local headlines by now. “Yes, it is.”

“I can vouch for most of my clients. I know them personally.” He pauses. “Those were not wedding arrangements.”

“I’m going to have a chat with Ms Lounds when I get back to Baltimore,” Will says. He’s not surprised, but he is disappointed. “Photos like that shouldn’t make the newspaper.”

“No, indeed, and they didn’t. I did some digging, as it is my backyard after all. They were only on her website.” Hannibal sounds as though he approves. “She has come quite a ways from her early days at the Maryland Enquirer.”

“Journalism at its finest.” Will snorts.

“She’s exceedingly good at what she does. Your personal bias, of course, would not endear her to you. I imagine being on the receiving end of her pen would give quite a different perspective.”

“Let’s not talk about Freddie Lounds,” Will says. That bitter vial is best left untouched on the shelf that houses his darker specimens and skeletons. He and Lounds can really get into it, if given free reign, and it’s not something he’s especially proud of.

“Very well. Shall we walk?”

Hannibal shows him the rest of the garden, wonderful but uniformly so for someone ill-versed in botanics as Will. He makes an attempt to seem curious for courtesy’s sake, but Hannibal at last steers him back to the house. “We are quite different people,” he says.

“I dare say you’re a cat person,” Will says in jest.

“I don’t like animals except on the plate,” Hannibal says. “You said you have dogs?”

“Seven.” Plus a few fosters. Will misses them. Dogs are straightforward; infinitely simpler than people like Hannibal. The problem, he always finds, is that people say one thing and want another—a dog, on the other hand, knows what she wants. She will have no trouble going off into the woods because she wants to die alone. She will not resent you for letting her go.

“In lieu of friends, then?” It’s ground they’ve covered and Will is irritated.

“Dogs are more steadfast friends than people.”

“There are advantages to the depth and complexity of human relationships even for lone wolves such as you.” Hannibal gestures him inside the house.

“Are there?” Will pulls his shoes off and stands holding them while Hannibal hangs his jacket. In the quiet intimacy of the foyer this seems suddenly more real and he is having second thoughts. “Relationships are about reciprocity. What benefit is there to either party if I cannot genuinely reciprocate?”

“Do you believe yourself to be incapable of friendship?” Hannibal takes Will’s shoes from him, his dark eyes unreadable.

“I have no evidence to the contrary.”

Perhaps, Will thinks, Hannibal will be offended or discouraged by this. He doesn’t know if the disappointment he feels at this thought is his own or the other man’s.

Dinner is short, flavourful and tender; a delicate loin roast with a summer fruit compote and a fragrant red wine which Will feels ill-equipped to enjoy. The other courses are equally lovely. Hannibal proves himself a deft hand with the kitchen blowtorch, and there are more edible flowers in the dizzyingly colourful salad than there are green leaves. Will is suitably impressed.

“Why did you agree to dinner?” Hannibal asks at last when he has cleared away the dessert plates and poured Will a third glass of wine. The wine itself is almost savoury and has a coppery aftertaste Will feels is uncomfortably close to the taste of blood. He is so well plied with it that his nerve endings feel swollen and tender. He takes another sip, inexplicably taken with it.

“I suppose because I enjoy your company, in spite of our differences.” He tips his glass this way and that. They sit at a smaller table in Hannibal’s sitting room, framed by the drapes and the gauzy curtain. It’s dark out and Will hears the gentle smack of rain on the window. “In spite of everything I am, it seems, loathe to miss the chance to connect with someone. Why did you invite me?”

“I find you attractive and interesting. Dinner is usually the next step, when the person in question is not your patient. However, life, it seems, is too short not to take opportunities where they arise. When you seemed concerned for my well-being…” He shakes his head. “I thought that was an opportunity.”

“But you feel differently now,” Will concludes.

“Now I think I may have misread you,” Hannibal admits.

Will sets the glass upright. “Because of what I said about reciprocity.”

“Yes,” Hannibal agrees.

“I wasn’t trying to warn you away,” Will says.

“I know,” says Hannibal. “But if you cannot see me, how are you to know that I am what you want?”

“As my therapist perhaps I should trust you to judge for me,” Will says jokingly. He drinks more of his wine and it rushes through him like a tide.

“You shouldn’t trust so easily.” However, he doesn’t look displeased.

“I trust you.” Will stands unsteadily. “I think I’ve had too much to drink.”

Hannibal directs him down the hall to the bathroom where he takes a piss and splashes cold water on his face. The shock of it calms him a bit, but he still takes his time drying his hands and face. Hannibal’s application of wine, food, and words is dizzying.

When he returns Hannibal has cleared away the drink and at first seems to be gone. As Will’s eyes adjust to the dim light he realises Hannibal stands behind his desk, turning something over in his hand. The dark metal gleams balefully in the lamplight in an altogether familiar way and Will’s instinctive reaction is to fumble for his own, absent, gun. He forces his hands to be still.

“Dr Lecter,” he says, “your protection, I presume?”

Hannibal looks up and his hands jerk, as if he is about to hide the gun. Instead he brings it up. “It’s a shame,” he says. “One thinks of small towns as innocent somehow. Danger shouldn’t follow you there.”

“Let me see,” says Will. He takes the gun from Hannibal and looks it over. He knows better than to sight, but the balance is good. “It’s in good shape.”

“I am not professionally trained with a weapon, but it is often prudent to be prepared.” Hannibal runs his fingers along the grooves. Will swallows, his mouth suddenly dry.

“Do you practice?”

“Yes. Behind the house in the woods.” Hannibal regards him closely. “Do you have an interest in guns?”

“I like their mechanical nature,” says Will, although it’s more than that. A heat from more than just the wine is swelling up in him. He flattens his sweaty palms against his trouser legs, directing his gaze away from Hannibal’s hands. “I should go.”

“Will.” Hannibal sets the gun down on the desk and comes around. “You shouldn’t drive. Stay here.”

Will swallows. “Is that a proposition?”

Hannibal tilts his head down as if considering. The shadows along his face sharpen, giving him a hungry look. “Not if you don’t want it to be. The guest bedroom is open to you.” He steps closer. “I think, however, that is not the case. Were you hoping for a proposition, Will?”

“Yes,” Will murmurs. His earlier caution seems unnecessary. Undoubtedly Hannibal knows what he’s getting himself into; and surely so does Will.

Swiftly Hannibal backs him up against the bookcase. “Good.”

Will expects Hannibal to kiss him, but he buries his face in the crook of Will’s neck where the crease of his collar lays against his skin. He shivers. Hannibal deftly unbuttons his shirt with one hand and pulls up his undershirt, running a firm hand up his stomach.

“Such a lovely creature,” he’s saying, his breath hot and damp.

“I’m not an animal,” Will says, but it sounds insincere and the noise he makes when Hannibal bites his jaw is less than human. His shaky hand goes to Hannibal’s awful tie, but Hannibal grips his wrist.

“Wait.”

He strips Will almost casually, his touch familiar in a way that is unusual for first time lovers. Will himself wouldn’t know where to start; perhaps Hannibal senses this. He’s fully aroused by the time Hannibal coaxes him to step out of his trousers, his body flush with it. The fine material of Hannibal’s suit bunches as he grips it but when Hannibal pulls away and says, “Fuck me, Will,” he almost whines in disbelief.

He crowds Hannibal into the desk, luxuriating in the feel of the fine silk wool blend on his naked skin, and the heat of Hannibal’s body. He grips Hannibal’s waist just above his pants and presses them flush together. If he slides just so this way his cock slips out past the band of his briefs and Hannibal groans, leaning his head on Will’s shoulder. Will flicks the button of his trousers open and his hand darts inside. He gives Hannibal’s cock a few perfunctory strokes and Hannibal’s breathing becomes ragged.

“Will, please—”

“Lube?” he asks breathlessly. Hannibal’s suit jacket is still done up. His cock juts out of his trousers lewdly.

“Top drawer.” He leans back and scrabbles for it. “Here.”

“God.” Will presses his face against Hannibal’s, jaw to jaw. He doesn’t want to kiss him; this is perfect. “Do you jerk off here?”

“Sometimes.” Hannibal lets out a choked moan as Will slips a finger inside him and Will’s cock jumps. He’s braced both hands on the edge of the desk; he tries to squirm away when Will adds a second finger. Will pulls the waistband of his own briefs below his balls and grips their cocks together while he fucks Hannibal with his other hand. He exhales roughly into Hannibal’s ear.

“Fuck, oh fuck. I have to—” The tight heat around his fingers is too much. He turns Hannibal around and pulls down his trousers and his silk underwear. His cock rubs against Hannibal’s hole as he slicks himself up with lube. “Oh, shit. Condoms?”

Hannibal curses and reaches across the desk again. Will tears open the foil and rolls it onto his cock. He pushes into Hannibal, teeth gritted against the feeling. Hannibal exhales sharply. Will pushes down until Hannibal is braced on his elbows over the desk and pulls out once, slowly, shuddering. His left hand is white knuckled on Hannibal’s ass and the other pushes up through his suit to the skin underneath. He holds Hannibal open with just the tip of his cock until Hannibal trembles almost imperceptibly and Will can’t stand it any longer, needing to fuck him. He surges forward, driving a gasp out of Hannibal.

He fucks Hannibal roughly and he bears it without further sound. Sweat dampens his brow and his palms. He’s starting to wonder if Hannibal actually likes being fucked when Hannibal works a hand down to his cock, holding himself up with one arm. He comes quickly, spurting over his hand and the desk. He clenches around Will and Will loses his rhythm.

“Fuck, I’m coming,” he moans. He falls forward, hands on the edge of the desk. His cock jerks inside Hannibal and he cries out.

He rests his head on Hannibal’s back for a moment. When he straightens Hannibal pushes himself up. Will pulls out slowly and takes the condom off, dropping it into the trash bin beside the desk. He turns Hannibal around, surprised by his pliability. He’s still breathing heavily, his fine hair in disarray over his forehead. Will bends to pull up Hannibal’s trousers, feeling like this is the courteous thing, but Hannibal stops him.

“Leave them.” He slides them off the rest of the way and hangs them over the chair. “Would you like a shower?”

Will strips out of his briefs. “Please.”

Hannibal divests himself of his suit jacket, vest, and tie, and leads Will upstairs, seemingly unbothered by his state of undress.

“We can use mine,” he says. “It’s bigger than the one in the guest bedroom.”

In the shower he pushes Will against the wall and jerks him off again until he’s on the edge of coming, then fucks himself onto Will’s cock. Will turns them around so he can hold Hannibal up against the wall, which is a younger man’s game and he can’t manage it for long. Although Hannibal makes a noise every time he thrusts up and he fervently wishes he could do it all night. He realises halfway through that they have foregone a condom this time and he drops his head onto Hannibal’s shoulder.

“Fucking Christ. Are you clean?”

“Are you always so lax?” Hannibal asks breathlessly. “If I wasn’t I wouldn’t let you fuck me like this. Can I assume the same courtesy?”

Will thrusts into him hard, setting his jaw. “Yeah.”

Fucking someone on their word is stupid, he knows. But he can’t bring himself to care.

He comes inside Hannibal, shaking. When he reaches for Hannibal’s cock the other man pushes his hand away. He’s only half hard. “Too soon,” he says.

He turns the water off and wipes the come off himself with a washcloth. Impossibly, Will finds his cock thickening as he watches.

Hannibal won’t be roused to a third round, however, for which Will can’t blame him, having been in his position more times than not.

“Do you top?” Will asks later when they have had coffee, shed their robes—Hannibal’s robes, rather—and lie in bed. It’s domestic, but somehow not much different from what Will imagined Hannibal would like.

“For the right person.” Hannibal lies very close to him, one hand entangled in the curls of Will’s groin. Will finds himself helpless not to respond to the sure touch and he squirms. Hannibal flattens a hand over his abdomen. “Shh.”

He strokes Will slowly and almost gently into a dry orgasm and Will pants and curls his toes and tucks his head into Hannibal’s shoulder as he moans through it, which seems to please Hannibal. He wipes come off his fingers onto Will’s stomach. Will finds that he can hardly keep his eyes open.

“Is this okay?” he asks, stretching out a bit.

“It’s good.” Hannibal lies on his side and runs a thumb over his brow. Soon enough he falls into a dreamless sleep.

 

He wakes once when it’s still dark and is chased by phantoms back into his nightmares. Two corpses sit up from the slab, joined at the fingers by a bloody thread. They stand; they hold his arms and Hannibal pries his mouth open and stuffs a bouquet of red flowers down his throat. The thorns tear at his insides.

“Hush, darling,” Hannibal says, raising a pitcher of water. It is cool and benevolent on his wounds until it fills his lungs and he drowns.

He comes to gasping for breath and registers two things: he aches all over, and he’s been restrained.

Adrenaline thunders through him. He can’t see. He tests the bonds, but they’re strong and not very flexible. He’s kneeling and his arms are bound above him, but there are no other clues. In spite of the adrenaline he feels groggy, like he’s been drugged.

“Will. You’re awake.” A familiar voice from behind and above him. Hannibal flips on a lamp. They are in Hannibal’s bedroom, and he kneels in front of an ornate floor length mirror he hadn’t noticed the night before. He’s still naked. His wrists are attached with rope to a metal hook and chain which runs through a ring in the ceiling and down behind the dresser.

Hannibal appears behind him. He is fully clothed, but wears only a shirt and tie; no waistcoat or jacket. In his right hand he carries the gun. He bends down and caresses Will’s jaw, meeting Will's eyes in the mirror.

“Your safeword is azalea.”

“What?” Will twists but Hannibal is already crouching behind him. He lifts Will’s ankles individually and spreads his knees apart until he is low to the ground and the pull on his wrists is almost painful. His head spins. Hannibal is going to fuck him, not kill him. Images of bloodletting spill out across his mind unbidden and he can’t let go of them; he thought it was the Ripper; he thought he was going to die.

He starts to hyperventilate.

“Will. Will!” Hannibal’s voice cuts through the fog. He smacks Will sharply on the cheek and Will gasps. “Tell me your safeword.”

“Azalea.” He forces the word out.

“Good,” Hannibal praises him. He begins binding Will’s ankles to a bar. He works the ropes with an experienced touch. Will tries to steady his breathing.

“Hannibal, did you drug me?”

“It’s very mild,” Hannibal says. “Completely safe. You’ll feel a bit disoriented.”

“Why?”

It’s difficult to arrange his thoughts into a pattern that makes sense. Tangents keep leaping out at him, like the feel of Hannibal’s firm touch on his calf just now.

“I estimated you would enjoy this,” Hannibal says easily. The problem is that he’s not wrong. The initial rush of fear, that two faced rabbit, has rolled over his nerves and set his skin to prickle. “It also has some nice side effects.”

This time the hand slaps the back of his thigh and it stings. Will sucks in a sharp breath. Hannibal presses his thumb into the skin and it burns like a day-old welt. He can’t quite stifle the moan that escapes him on the exhale.

“Hm.” Hannibal caresses the spot. “I’m very good at reading people. Nonetheless it gratifies me to know I have read you correctly. I think you and I will both enjoy this.”

Will has very little time to wonder what he is in for. Hannibal removes his belt swiftly and snaps it with a crack, and he flinches instinctively. Did Hannibal leave the bed while he was still in a drugged sleep and put on that belt, knowing he would take it off for this? The thought is intensely arousing.

“Is there anything else in the drug?” He can’t see Hannibal now and it makes him nervous.

“The rest is all you.” Hannibal appears in front of him. He grips Will’s head briefly with one hand and pulls it toward his crotch. His cock is hard already. Will can smell the thick musk of it and it makes his mouth water. His lips go slack. “I’m looking forward to using this mouth. Would you like that, Will?”

“Yes,” he moans. He is so fucked.

Hannibal’s hands are wet; he’s soaked the leather belt in tap water to make it heavier. Will’s nerves sing in anticipation.

“Would you beg for it?”

“Yes.” His tongue feels heavy and useless in his mouth. Breath escapes him in pants.

Hannibal begins without preamble when Will is not paying attention. He feels the bite of the leather before he realises what is happening and it catches him by surprise. He yelps, but quickly curbs the noise as the lash comes down again. Most of the time noise is discouraged as a sign of disobedience.

At first it’s sharp but nothing he can’t handle. This isn’t his first time, although he usually knows what’s going to happen beforehand. He takes it as silently as he is able. Hannibal whips his back with finesse until it burns dully, and he moves on to Will’s ass and thighs. Soon he feels hot and feverish and sweat gathers sticky at the junction of his neck and jaw. He drops his head and tries not to jerk at his bonds as Hannibal works him over. He has a light touch.

It lulls him into a false sense of security. Quite suddenly Hannibal lands a hard blow on his tender ass and he can’t hold back a cry. There is no signal beyond this, but the belt comes with force now and it takes less time than usual to transition from uncomfortable to genuinely painful. His skin feels like it’s on fire. The edge of the leather bites into his flesh.

When Hannibal pauses and trails the leather up his beaten flesh he whines. The belt comes again, hard. Will jerks forward with a sob. And again. He can feel something wet trickling down his back and he thinks it must be blood. His arms and knees ache but it’s nothing compared to the pain of the blows. After too short a time he realises Hannibal has no intention of giving him respite.

“Please,” he gasps. His cheeks are wet from sweat and involuntary tears.

“What is it?” Hannibal applies the belt almost casually. Will raises his head to look at him in the mirror.

“Please let me suck your cock,” he gets out. Hannibal pauses on the upswing.

“Will,” he says, almost tenderly, his face expressionless though his dick is tenting his trousers. He lets the belt fall. “No.”

“Ah!” Will tries to twist away but Hannibal is relentless. “Please, I can’t—I need it,” he’s babbling now. Anything to make it stop. He turns toward Hannibal, just to see if maybe that’s what he wants, and the belt nearly catches him across the face.

Immediately Hannibal withdraws. “You haven’t earned a cock between your lips yet.” He sets the belt down on the dresser and picks up the gun. “I don’t fuck just anybody. Show me you’re worth my time.”

He comes behind Will and sets one foot between his outspread legs, leaning over him. With one hand he grips Will’s hair at the root and tilts his head back, and with the other he feeds him the muzzle of the gun. Will chokes as Hannibal forces the cold barrel into his mouth. His cock jerks and fattens with blood.

“Easy,” Hannibal soothes him, stroking his throat. He swallows reflexively as the gun nudges his gag reflex. “That’s it. Oh, Will, you’re so good.”

He can’t move his head. Hannibal has him pinned in place. Panic rises in him as the gun slides across his tongue and he struggles not to gag. He breathes heavily through his nose. His eyes roll back for a glimpse of Hannibal’s face. Hannibal crouches slowly, keeping the gun in place.

He runs a hand along Will’s ass and Will pulls away sharply. Metal clacks against his teeth. When Hannibal presses a finger against his hole he almost comes right then, shuddering, the nine inch barrel halfway down his throat.

Hannibal’s finger slips in easily. He fucks Will slowly with one, then two fingers, the brush of his sleeve against Will’s tenderized flesh an exquisite counterpoint to the rhythmic slide of his hand. Will begins to rock back into his grip, though each touch brings a fresh wave of pain. He’s utterly skewered. He wants to beg Hannibal to fuck him but he can only lave his tongue against the grooves on the gun’s barrel.

Hannibal pulls the gun out first, not ungently, and Will coughs and hangs his head. The barrel is wet with spit and drool slips from the corner of his mouth. He pulls his fingers out next, leaving Will empty and aching. He turns the gun from side to side.

“I hope you got it clean.” The bitter, smoky taste of gunpowder residue stains Will’s tongue.

“What are you going to do?” he rasps, not expecting an answer. His throat feels raw and used. His cock is fully hard, curved inward so that the swollen red tip just touches his stomach when he sucks in breath. He’s almost thankful for the rope around his wrists, because he doesn’t think he could hold himself up right now.

“I’m going to fuck you with it,” says Hannibal. Will moans and tightens involuntarily. “It’s not the first time, is it?”

He grimaces and shakes his head. The idea that Hannibal knows is both terrifying and makes him desperate to take it.

“But it’s the first time someone else has done it to you.” He strokes Will’s hair, forces him to look up. The gun slots between Will’s ass cheeks, slipping past his gaping hole and catching on the rim. Fresh arousal spikes in him and he groans. “Answer me, Will.”

“Yes,” he says, looking past Hannibal.

“Does Alana know?” Hannibal’s tone is one of mild curiosity and Will’s hackles go up.

“Would you tell Alana that you like to drug your lovers and string them up while they’re unconscious?”

Hannibal releases his hair and smacks him across the face hard enough to leave a mark.

“Answer the question,” he says, his eyes gleaming.

“No.” Will coughs. “She doesn’t know about—any of this. Nobody does.”

“You shouldn’t have to deny yourself,” Hannibal says. He bends over Will’s back and runs a thumb down a welt; Will makes an aborted moan and grits his teeth. “Just for you, I’ve turned the safety off.”

He pushes the gun in smoothly and Will cries out as it fills him. Hannibal fucks it back into him once, twice, and all he can think is, oh God, it must be loaded, and he comes around the barrel. Hannibal fucks him through his orgasm until Will is shaking in his bonds and begging him.

“It’s too much,” he moans, “please.”

Hannibal reaches around and presses a hand to his abdomen to keep him in place. “Hush, you can take it,” he murmurs. He leans into Will almost like he’s fucking him and his shoulders rub Will’s raw skin. Will closes his eyes and forces himself not to move. He’s dripping with sweat now. Without warning Hannibal changes the angle of his thrusts and Will yelps, his hips trying to jerk forward. Hannibal’s grip is immutable and he has perfect control; he strokes Will’s prostate with the hot metal until he’s hard again. Then he pulls out.

Will opens his eyes. Hannibal is releasing him from the hook. As soon as the support is gone his knees give out, dropping him to the floor. His bound hands fall between his legs.

“Don’t touch yourself,” Hannibal orders. He places the gun down on the dresser and takes his cock out.

Will takes it in his mouth easily. It’s hot and slippery with precome and the scent of it is intoxicating. He sucks eagerly. Hannibal fists both hands in his hair and pulls him forward until Will’s lips are stretched around the base of his cock and the head opens up his throat. The yield of it is addictive after the unforgiving metal of Hannibal’s gun and he works his throat and mouth with abandon. Hannibal looks down at him, lips slack.

“You have such a sweet mouth,” he says, his voice dark and ragged. “I knew you would.”

He moves one hand to the back of Will’s head and begins to fuck his face in earnest with wet sounds. Will tries not to choke on his cock but his throat is still raw and it’s too much after too short a time, and he raises his bound hands to push Hannibal back. But Hannibal is stronger. With his free hand he pinches Will’s nose to cut off his air and slides his cock fully down Will’s throat, holding it there, and Will can’t help his short, desperate noises. His hands grip uselessly at Hannibal’s thigh and he goes slack. When Hannibal loosens his grip Will doesn’t try to pull away, only swallows frantically around Hannibal’s cock.

“So good,” Hannibal croons. He releases Will and Will pulls off, gasping for air. He falls back on his haunches and bends over almost double, chest heaving. But his cock still aches to be touched and he doesn’t need the recovery time that Hannibal allows him. He could come just from sucking Hannibal off.

Hannibal crouches down and takes Will under his arms. “Stand up,” he orders. It’s hard to do with the bar across his ankles but Will manages.

His legs shake and he gratefully braces himself against the dresser when Hannibal bends him over.

“This will probably hurt, but you have earned it.” He pulls the leather belt taut in front of Will’s face. “Bite down on this, please.”

Will obliges. Hannibal grips both ends of the belt in one hand behind Will’s head. With the other hand he guides his cock into Will. It doesn’t hurt—he’s open and wet and he squirms back with equal force.

“Fuck me,” he begs around the leather bit.

Hannibal leans over him and fucks him, and every thrust rubs against the inflamed skin of his thighs and ass and the cocktail of sensations makes him dizzy. Hannibal reached around and takes his cock in hand and Will’s jaw goes slack and his hips jerk frantically as he strokes Will in counterpoint to his thrusts. Hannibal drops the belt and covers Will’s nose and mouth with a firm hand, and Will comes hard. He’s still coming when Hannibal bites down on his shoulder and jerks up into him roughly. He shuts his eyes and takes it.

Soon enough Hannibal subsides and pulls away. Will takes in short, shallow breaths. He’s barely holding himself up on the dresser. Come slides down the inside of one thigh and Hannibal runs a finger through it and slips it into Will’s mouth. Will sucks obediently and Hannibal lets out a sigh of satisfaction.

“You were so good for me, Will,” he says, pinching cruelly at the corner of Will’s mouth where the belt chafed the delicate skin. Will makes a noise of protest.

He kneels and unties the ropes at Will’s ankles. “Come here,” he says, standing.

Hannibal manhandles him easily and with surprising gentleness onto the bed so that Will lies on his side. He unbinds Will’s wrists and Will flexes his hands as the blood rushes back into them. His body feels heavy with endorphins—his mind, however, is clear and sharp as a glass knife. Sex never fails to do this to him. Once the initial haze of orgasm fades he feels energized, ready to tackle problems with renewed vigour. Most lovers find it off-putting.

Hannibal still stands above him winding the rope into a tidy bundle. He’s already cleaned himself up, fully dressed now, but Will finds it fairly typical of doms to like control in this way and he isn’t bothered.

“I’m going to get a washcloth,” Hannibal says. Will nods, too physically exhausted to formulate a response. Hannibal returns shortly with a warm damp cloth and a glass of water. He urges Will to prop himself up and drink. Come still drips from his ass, but to Will’s surprise the cloth is not to save Hannibal’s sheets; Hannibal wipes Will’s brow with it, pushing his sweat-soaked hair off his face.

“Your cheeks flush beautifully,” he tells Will. His touch is soft. He doesn’t offer the ointment Will knows he probably has, which irritates him in a surprising way: Hannibal assumes more control than Will would give him. Still, he’s feeling warm and complacent now so he doesn’t say anything, allowing the touch and the words.

 

Will dons a silk bathrobe and follows Hannibal downstairs, though walking is unpleasant and sitting will be painful for a few days at least. He perches on a bar stool and wishes he’d brought his laptop so he could work.

“Breakfast?” Hannibal offers, but Will shakes his head.

“Just coffee, please.”

“You should eat. I’ll make you some toast.” Regarding food, it seems Hannibal has a hard time taking no for an answer. Will eats a little of the toast and drinks two cups of coffee while Hannibal prepares his own breakfast. The smell of it is almost overwhelming; rich, smoky bacon, the sweet toasted brioche, and fragrant herbed eggs. Will wonders how he has the appetite. Finally he sits down across from Will at the bar and pours his own cup of coffee.

“Do you mind?” he asks, gesturing to the newspaper Will is halfheartedly flipping through. Will turns the sections he’s finished with around so they’re facing Hannibal.

“Nothing in here about the two most recent murders,” he says. It’s a city paper from today, so a couple of country deaths from a few days ago wouldn’t make the cut—he’s not surprised. Hannibal frowns and makes no comment.

“I think I should stay here with you the next couple of days,” Will says abruptly.

Hannibal sets his fork down. “I feel as though I should be flattered, but I am instead concerned. This is about the attack on the shop, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” He taps his fingers against the thin walls of his cup where the coffee cools rapidly. “You may have a gun which you clearly know how to use, but that doesn’t mean you’re safe here. This is a big house and someone could easily break in and wait for you.”

“I have excellent security,” Hannibal says. “However, I agree with your assessment. You can have the guest bedroom.”

“You do?” Will had expected more of a protest.

“Certainly. I thought I was safe at the shop but I clearly am not. Another mistake like that could be fatal, no matter what weapons are at my disposal. Surely anyone would think twice before trying to take me out under the FBI’s nose.”

“You seemed quite self-assured yesterday,” Will says.

“I have given it some thought.” He quirks an eyebrow. “Also, I enjoyed our dinner and I wouldn’t object to having you around.”

Will hides a smile in his coffee. “I enjoyed our… dinner as well.”


	7. Chapter 7

By the time Will gets back to his hotel room he’s missed four calls: one from Alana, one from Jack, and two from Abigail. Only Jack has left a message. Will wonders how Abigail got his number.

When he checks out the woman at the desk hands him a slip of paper.

“A young lady came round looking for you yesterday,” she says.

“Ah, thanks.” He settles the bill and retreats to his truck. The note reads:

_Will, answer your phone_

_I’m staying at the Birchtree B &B_

_Abigail_

He crumples it up and then guiltily smoothes it out again. He could avoid her easily enough now that he’s not staying at the hotel but… that would probably be the end of whatever relationship they have left. Although he understands it would be better for her—in large part because Alana keeps telling him so—he selfishly doesn’t want that.

Abigail picks up her phone on the first ring.

“Will?” There’s a lot of noise on her end. “I thought you were going to ignore me forever. That would have been embarrassing after I made the trip out here.”

She sounds relieved. “Hi, Abigail,” he says.

“Hi.” He can picture her standing in the middle of town amidst traffic, her cardigan rumpled, cheeks flushed with the heat of summer, that particular wrinkle between her eyebrows. “I’m starving. Can we get lunch?”

He meets her at the cafe down the street from Hannibal’s shop. Unable to resist he comes at it from the wrong way so he can check on the shop; it’s closed but there are lights on inside. Hannibal mentioned going in to clean. He’s nowhere in sight, though, and Will has other priorities.

“Where did you get the money to come here?” he asks Abigail over a plate of fries and half a BLT.

“College fund,” she says casually, dipping a fry in ketchup. As Will always finds, Abigail in reality has a sharp edge that Abigail in his mind lacks.

“You shouldn’t be spending that,” he tells her.

“It’s fine, I have a part time job now. I can make up the difference in a week, tops.” She’s put her hair up; it makes her look older. He’s known her more than a year now, Will thinks, and yet he still doesn’t know her well at all.

“Why did you come?”

She hasn’t brought up any topic of conversation yet except to tell Will that a relative come into town the month before to take her out for her eighteenth birthday. She sits back. “I haven’t seen you very much since you got out of the hospital. It feels like something is wrong between us.”

"There is no 'us'," Will days, but it comes out harsher than he means it. He means to tell her that she’s too young for a friendship to be appropriate, and he's neither old enough nor experienced enough for a mentorship to be meaningful. He can't mother her like Alana and she sure as hell doesn't need a father figure. What place can he hold in her life if she's to move on? But he doesn't say any of this, and she scowls and swabs another fry through the ketchup.

"Are you mad I didn't visit you in the hospital?" Under her sullen tone there's real guilt.

"No." He sighs. "It's better that you didn't."

"Okay." She falls silent. After a moment she says, "I don't really want to be your friend. I know Dr Bloom thinks I do. It's just that you know so much about me and... my father, but I hardly know anything about you. I feel unbalanced."

"I'm sorry," Will says, because it's all he can think to say.

"Yeah, well." She adjusts the knot of her silky summer scarf against the hollow of her throat. "Me, too. So tell me about your case."

"I don't know if that's a good idea," he protests.

"It's a serial killer, right? I bet I can help. I'm smarter than most people think." She lifts her chin.

"I know you're smart," says Will. "You don't have to prove yourself."

"You don't think anyone's as smart as you," she says dismissively. "Anyway you're always saying that Jack needs you for a second opinion. Maybe you need a second opinion too."

"He's dangerous," says Will. "That's all you need to know."

"More dangerous than my dad?" she asks.

"His patterns are obscure. There's very little forensic evidence to go on." Will sidesteps the reference to Garrett Hobbs. "We have the advantage of a small population to draw from."

"That's not much of an advantage," Abigail says.

"No,” he sighs. “It isn't."

 

Abigail wait in the truck while he settles the bill. She's checking her email on his laptop when he gets in the driver's side.

"Where are you working?" he asks.

"I'm a research assistant for one of the professors at Quantico," she says. "Dr Bloom recommended me."

"Crime research?"

"Criminal psychology." She chews on her pen and taps something into the keyboard.

Will grimaces. "What were you going to study before—"

"Before my dad tried to kill me?" She looks up at him, blue eyes piercing. "Psychology. Of course. But I didn't think I'd live that long."

There's a bitter twist to her words and she drops her gaze when she realises what she's said. Will lets out a breath. He has manoeuvred his thoughts around Abigail's father carefully. He knows that Abigail was aware of his crimes, even complicit—he can't stop himself from connecting the dots—but they have never spoken of it explicitly, for good reason.

It is a truth he would prefer to ignore to maintain the image of her he clings to, no matter that she resents him for it.

"Anyway, I think it's a perfect fit," she says.

"I think you deserve better than a life of wading neck deep through other people's shit," he mutters, but it's not his responsibility to tell her so and she ignores him. "Where should I take you?"

"I want to hang out with you for a bit," she says. "I can't get good WiFi here and you've got this internet stick."

"I'm working," he says.

"Mmhm." She's already slouching in the passenger seat and scrolling through Facebook. Will bites his tongue and pulls out into the street.

Will makes house calls for the better part of the day to speak with the members of the bocce club about the deceased. Their spouses turn up nothing useful; one is angry, and refuses to speak with him for long. The other tells him that she holds no ill feelings toward her husband or the other woman. She cries throughout their conversation, tears coming without much provocation.

“It’s funny,” she says, “I lost my mum a while back. I thought the grief would have faded by now, but this makes me miss her more than I miss him. I just don’t know what to do.”

“Are you close with any other members of the club?” Will asks her.

“Mrs Petteridge, I suppose. I think she must be the only person who knew he was having an affair.” She shakes her head and dabs at her cheeks. “She always told me to keep an eye on him once the children were moved out… Hah. Guess I should’ve listened.”

Mrs Elaine Petteridge turns out to be a chatty woman, widowed some fifteen years earlier, with steely gray hair pinned up in waves and an imperious look in her sharp eyes. She spots Abigail in the truck when Will comes to her door and brings her in to ply her with tea and cookies. Abigail is charming and sweet to the old woman and doesn’t bat an eye when Elaine introduces her to her partner, Maria Guzman, who comes in from the sun room. Will hangs back, uncertain.

When he has finished asking her questions, Abigail helps Elaine with the dishes and Maria comes over to him.

“This is about that business with the murders, isn’t it?” she says. “I’ll tell you something, Agent Graham. He’s slippery as a fish, that one.”

“Who is?” Will asks.

“Well now, you won’t hear his name from me,” she murmurs, her eyes focused on some far-off point. “Like as not he’ll get rid of us, too. We’re two old women nobody gonna miss.”

Abigail, standing under the doorframe in Will’s eyeline, acts as though she hasn’t heard anything. Will’s stomach flips. Elaine comes in at that moment to wheel her partner away. “You’ll have to forgive her,” she says sharply. “She’s not all here these days.”

Back in the truck, Abigail curls up in the seat.

“I’ll take you to the bed and breakfast to get your things,” he says. “You should go back to Baltimore.”

He’s closer to the Ripper now. He can smell it in the air. The thought of Abigail staying here while he baits his hook makes his stomach churn.

“My return ticket is for the twenty first. I was planning to spend a few days here,” she says.

“I’ll buy you a new one.”

“Why can’t I just stay here?”

“Because.” Will takes his glasses off and rubs his face. “I can’t keep an eye on you all the time, and it’s dangerous. I’m not your parent and this isn’t a discussion. You need to go home.”

She folds an arm across her stomach and slouches. “I thought you’d be happy to see me.”

“And I thought you didn’t want to be friends,” Will says pointedly.

“I don’t,” she snaps. “I just—when you got sick, before you were in the hospital… you were acting weird. And then everyone thought you were helping Abel Gideon kill all those people and that you broke him out.”

“You believed it,” Will says. He looks away from her. It stings; even coming from Alana it didn’t sting like this. “Don’t blame yourself. Everyone believed it.”

“But I shouldn’t have. I mean, I know what a killer looks like—”

“So do I,” Will interrupts her. “Intimately.”

He knows inside and out. He knows what the knife feels like in his hand, the jut of a windpipe in his palm. When Abigail looks at him sometimes he can only see the scar on her neck and that light in her eyes fading as she bleeds out. He leans back into the seat.

Abigail reaches up to touch her scarf as if to reassure herself, as if she knows what he’s thinking.

“I feel guilty,” she says. “I thought you were like me but you’re not.”

Like her. Will grips the bottom of the steering wheel. “Does Alana know?”

“No.” She has such a perfect look of fear and unhappiness on her face and Will hates her father for putting it there, for giving him that feeling of satisfaction in the pit of his stomach when he sees it. “Please don’t tell her, I—I know I could still be charged in my father’s case, but I thought you always knew. Please don’t tell Dr Bloom.”

“It’s not my place to tell her.” He turns the key in the ignition and pulls out.

“I’ll go back to Baltimore.” She looks out the window. Her eyes glimmer with unshed tears.

He drives her back to where she’s staying and she packs her small bag. He can’t stop thinking about Abigail and Noriko, kindred spirits. He can’t let go of the idea that Noriko knew her killer well, knew his nature.

On the way to the bus depot he stops outside the flower shop. He knows he should drive Abigail straight there, but the lights are on and in the old dim afternoon they are like a beacon from a lighthouse. He is drawn to the rocky shore.

“Stay here,” he tells Abigail. She’s let her hair down and it’s like a smudge where her head rests against the window. She nods.

The shop is locked. Will knocks, and Hannibal appears out of the back room. He’s dressed as he was in the morning, but his shirt is wrinkled now and he carries a paper bag in one hand. He opens the door for Will.

“Nice of you to drop by,” he says. The broken glass rustles when he sets the bag down, the sharp sound making Will cringe. The shop is a little better than it was; the floors have been swept clean and the flowers are absent.

“Any sign of the gunman?” Will asks, though he knows the answer.

“None. They are doing their best.”

“I’m sure.” Will’s eyes go to the blood stain on the window. Hannibal hasn’t cleaned it off.

“Come into the back,” Hannibal says. “I have something for you.”

He shows Will to a part of the store he hasn’t been in. The flower room is small and crowded with colours and smells. It did not escape damage; there’s a bullet hole in the door and the glass door of one of the coolers is shattered. The cracks make a kaleidoscope of the arrangement behind them, a spray of rich, fine reds framed by delicate ferns and tall, iridescent feathers. It looks like a splatter of blood against the white metal shelf. Will averts his gaze.

Elsewhere in the room a freezer stands untouched, and beside it two floor to ceiling glass refrigerators—both empty—and a small sink and counter. An array of knives and scissors hang on a magnetic strip above the counter. Hannibal opens one of the drawers and sifts through it.

“I found it while cleaning,” he says. “I recall that you occasionally wear a tie, and it is decidedly not my style.”

He hands the tie pin to Will. It is a small, flat stag’s head cast in bronze; the sharp back pricks at Will’s palm. He holds it up to the light.

“It’s fine work,” he says.

“I thought you would appreciate it, being a hunter.”

Will frowns. “I’m more of a fisherman.”

“Will.” Hannibal gives him a knowing look. “You are a hunter by nature and profession. It is an attractive trait. Take it as a compliment.”

“I’m not convinced that it is one.” Will pockets the trinket. He is certain Hannibal is trying to flatter him in his own somehow sincere way, but Will feels a bit like he’s dodging bullets, not compliments.

A noise behind them startles him and he turns, reaching for the gun that’s not there, his heart jumping. But it’s only Abigail standing in the doorway. “Will?”

Her eyes flick between the two of them, standing just too close.

“I told you to stay in the truck,” he says.

“Who is this lovely young lady?” Hannibal comes forward and holds out a hand to her.

“My name’s Abigail,” she introduces herself, taking his hand.

“This is Dr Lecter, a… friend.” Will steps back. “We should be going. I just came to see if everything was okay.”

“Ah,” Hannibal says. “Abigail Hobbs, I presume.”

She shoots Will a panicked look. “I, uh.”

“Yes,” Will says. “Garett Jacob Hobbs’ daughter. We were just going to the bus depot.”

“You should stay for dinner.” Hannibal addresses her. She regains her composure quickly and favours him with a sweet smile.

“I’d love to. Are you sure I wouldn’t be intruding?”

“Lovely and mannered. It would be a pleasure.” His eyes glint and he returns her smile. Will finds that he is continually amazed at how pleasant Hannibal can be toward other people, and he feels as if he should explain this to Abigal—that his true nature is not so. He’s still unsure whether to be flattered by Hannibal’s apparent openness with him or to be irritated that he isn’t worth the effort to charm.

“Then I would be happy to come, Dr Lecter. Can I?” She directs this last at Will, who sees no point in resisting their combined force. Abigail will be as safe with him in Hannibal’s house as anywhere.

As they are leaving Abigail points to the thing in his hand. “What is that?”

“It’s a… gift from him.” He puts it in his coat pocket.

She makes a face. “It’s morbid. What kind of a gift is that?”

It occurs to him that she has a similar bent as Hannibal; her true nature is not a beast that often shows its face, having been long since twisted into submission.

 

Abigail is different at dinner from the troubled, sometimes sullen girl he knows. She is animated and vivacious; her cheeks are flushed with the enchantment of conversation. She asks Hannibal about his past work in psychiatry and he engages her easily; to Will’s concern, she displays an intense interest in experimental treatment.

“You knew Dr Bloom?” she asks Hannibal, who is wrapping the wellingtons carefully in fine pastry.

“We were colleagues for many years. I can attest to her formidable skill.”

“Do you think she would want to try those things?” Abigail asks, her words coy but her approach bold.

“She is your psychiatrist?” Abigail nods. “No, I don’t think she would. Alana is fairly conservative with certain treatments—she has a lot of faith in the mind.”

“And you don’t?” Will interjects.

“I think the mind, like the body, cannot always heal itself. Sometimes it betrays its host and needs to be coaxed back onto the right path.” Hannibal knots the twine with a flourish. He sets the wellingtons on the parchment paper and slides them into the oven. “I think some wine before dinner, and I assume some soda for Abigail.”

“A soda for myself as well,” says Will. “I have to drive Abigail to the bus later.”

“Very well.”

He leaves then briefly to retrieve the wine from the cellar and Abigail’s cheerful mood ebbs. she fiddles with a piece of jute twine, tying it into knots on top of knots.

“Can you see it?” she asks Will abruptly.

“See what?”

But Hannibal returns at that moment and she flicks the string away, her face shuttering off. She brightens when he pours her both a tall, narrow glass of soda and a small measure of wine.

“She’s eighteen,” Will admonishes, but Hannibal puts a finger to his lips and shoos her into the living room.

“It’s just a bit of wine, Will,” he says when they are alone in the kitchen. “I’m sure she’s had worse.”

They follow Abigail into the other room, Hannibal with his hand flat on Will’s still tender back. He feels a flush rise in him at the itching, burning pain, and at Hannibal’s casual familiarity.

“This is nice,” Abigail says from where she is tucked into the couch, her hands cupping the wine glass. “You must be rich.”

“Psychiatry was good to me,” Hannibal agrees.

“I want to go into psychology.” She sips the wine. “Then the FBI.”

“Ah, like Will.”

Will wishes fervently for a beer. He can feel a headache lurking and his tolerance for this conversation, which seems to be directly aimed at irritating him, is quickly dissipating.

“Just like Will,” Abigail says with a self-satisfied smile.

“Will has quite a gift, you know. Do you teach her?” Hannibal asks him.

‘I don’t think I need to,” Will says.

“I had the advantage of living with a serial killer,” Abigail says blithely, though her words have a sharp undertone like the shallow waters that can’t hide a rocky creek bed. Hannibal raises an eyebrow in query.

“Is it an advantage?”

 

“She’s very sharp,” he tells Will when they are alone in the kitchen, Abigail setting the table.

“She’s a survivor.” Will lifts his glasses and runs a hand over his face.

“A person can’t be a survivor forever. Eventually she will have to start living in earnest and sever her ties to you, a part of her traumatic past.” Hannibal plates with quick, sure gestures. His focus is on the food but his words are as pointed as ever.

“I know that.”

“And eventually you will have to sever your ties to her,” Hannibal says, “as she is also a part of your trauma.”

“She has nothing to do with my—trauma, as you put it.” He bristles. Hannibal is regarding him closely.

“You killed her father. He left a very deep impression on you, didn’t he? He set off the chain of events that led you to kill Gideon.”

“Alana cleared me for duty after that,” he snaps.

“At which time you were still sleeping together.” Hannibal persists.

“We were not,” he says. His hands tighten around his glass. They had been, in fact, but their affair ended shortly afterward. They had come to the agreement that it would be best not to disclose this, if it came down to it. Alana stood to lose her job if it was thought Will’s psych eval hadn’t been one hundred percent unbiased.

“You were. I requested Alana’s file on you. A man of sound mind wouldn’t have let Abel Gideon into his head like you did. You’ve been wounded, no less than that girl in there.” He reaches for Will, but Will steps back to avoid his touch.

“Did you request that file before or after we fucked?” he asks bitterly.

“You are my patient, Will,” Hannibal says. “It was within my right.”

“Was it? Are we patient and therapist or are we friends? It’s not within your right as a friend to request confidential information from an ex-lover.”

Hannibal lowers his hands, palm up, as if he’s placating Will. “You’re hurt. Perhaps I was wrong.”

“Guys?” Both of them turn to the doorway where Abigail watches them with wide, bright eyes. “I’m done.”

“Thank you, Abigail,” says Hannibal, scooping up the serving platters in one hand. “You may go take a seat.”

Will turns his back to Hannibal and leans against the bar, his hands braced on either side of him. “I should have known not to trust you. You and Alana both. Normal people don’t fuck their patients.”

“I am not normal and neither are you,” says Hannibal.

“If I was I wouldn’t need therapy.” He snorts. His thoughts rattle about his head; he can’t pin them down. Hannibal places a hand on his arm.

“Do you want to trust me, Will?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then trust me.”

 

It’s late by the time they leave. Abigail is half asleep from the wine and she’s talked more than Will has ever heard. She stares out the window as he drives.

“Do you think I’ll be okay?” she asks him.

He can’t bring himself to answer.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: somnophilia (and the implication of dubious consent)

 

Will intends to sleep in the guest bedroom but he falls asleep in Hannibal’s bed after Hannibal plies him with wine and brings him upstairs to suck him off. He wakes up to Hannibal fucking him open, pinning Will facedown on the bed with one hand on the back of his neck. He fucks Will with long, slow strokes and Will moans and shudders and tightens around his cock as he comes awake. He’s already hard. He makes an aborted movement away from the relentless slide of Hannibal’s cock, all of him feeling swollen and hot, over sensitized, but Hannibal tightens his grip on Will’s neck.

“Easy,” he says, as if gentling an animal. Will lets out a shaky breath on the downstroke and goes pliant against him. The whole of him burns where Hannibal touches him and aches where he doesn’t.

He thinks about Hannibal opening him up while he is asleep, not waking him up but using Will’s body for his own pleasure; he thinks about having woken up later with come leaking out of him, sore and fucked out and still hard, and he whines and forces himself to lie still and take it.

Hannibal’s pace quickens as soon as he stops moving, though his strokes remain even and punishingly long. Will works one hand underneath himself but the space between his body and the sheets is too tight and he can’t do more than grip his cock tightly. Hardly faltering, Hannibal bears down on Will and with his other arm grips his elbow and twists his wrist around behind his back. Any protests Will might have are stifled with his face mashed into the sheets. Incoherent noises rise in his throat as Hannibal lays bodily on top of him, pinning Will’s arm with his weight and the force of his thrusts.

“Tomorrow I will fuck you so easily you won’t wake up,” Hannibal murmurs, and Will can’t help the way he tightens and shivers in response. Hannibal’s breath turns ragged. “You like to be used, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Will hisses. He’s so full, so completely encompassed, even breath is hard to draw and he desperately wants to come like this. The burn and slide of skin against his tender back sends him into a haze and he can’t think beyond feeling; it’s good, it’s addictive.

Hannibal fucks into him roughly and stills suddenly and Will feels his cock thicken and throb against his insides as he comes. Will shudders and bucks his hips, trying to take him in deeper, and Hannibal moans in his ear.

“Will,” he breathes. He moves to brace himself on one elbow and slides his arm under Will to pull them flush. With his knees on either side of Will, he pushes himself up onto one hand, his cock still inside him.

“Up,” he says. and Will obliges, lifting himself onto four shaky limbs. In this position Hannibal’s softening cock brushes his prostate every time he shifts, and he pants and grips the sheets.

“Please,” he moans. Hannibal strokes his side with a firm hand. Will wants to touch himself but there’s a thrill in holding back.

“Tell me what you want.”

“Please, I need to come—” he gasps as Hannibal works a finger into him alongside his cock. He clenches instinctively around the squirming thing and Hannibal inhales sharply.

“Stay loose and open for me, Will,” he says. “Can you do that?”

Will slowly opens up to the intrusion. Hannibal squirts lube onto his sensitive hole and easily slides another finger in, then with some effort he pushes his thumb past the rim of his hole and Will can feel Hannibal grasping his cock inside of him and stretching Will out to jerk himself slowly. He writhes and his mouth hangs open. “Hannibal—”

“Touch yourself,” Hannibal orders. Will licks his palm and slides his hand down over his cock, mixing his saliva with slippery precome. It only takes a few strokes to bring himself off and he comes with a strangled shout, his ass clamping down on Hannibal as Hannibal’s knuckle nudges his prostate. He drops to his elbows.

Hannibal groans roughly and withdraws his fingers and his cock, both wet with come.

Will lowers himself to the bed, exhaling deeply. Hannibal strokes the back of his head.

“You were lovely,” he says softly. He swims into focus above Will. He looks eminently satisfied, and his touch is somehow more intimate than the fucking itself.

Will wonders how far down the rabbit hole he is already.

 

He scrubs vigorously in the shower, his mind whirling. He feels like he is quarry and the bullets have grazed him. Hannibal treats him like more than a casual fuck. He’s tender and sharp at the same time, and Will is waiting, tense, for the other shoe to drop.

He should end this. He should finish the case and go home.

But he is not immune to Dr Lecter’s particular brand of charm, no matter how much he would like to pretend otherwise, and giving up control to him is a heady aphrodisiac.

 

Hannibal woos him with breakfast foods—some undoubtedly homemade bread slathered thickly with sweet butter and rich jams, coffee as always, piquant meats and cheeses. Will finds himself overwhelmed by the wealth of flavours.

“Spicy foods awaken the taste buds,” he says. Will hums noncommittally and does not eat much. He suddenly wonders if, like Persephone, he has been emotionally ensnared by Hannibal’s cooking.

“Last night,” Hannibal says suddenly, wiping his fingers on a crisp white napkin. “You were hurt that I had looked at your file. Why?”

The coffee sours on his tongue. Will has never been good at compartmentalizing, though not for lack of trying. It’s somehow analogous that an hour earlier Hannibal had been fucking him awake in the most obscene way and now he wants to talk about such an invasive, slippery thing.

“They were private documents. Even I haven’t read them.” He can’t put into words the sharp burst of panic and betrayal. He doesn’t want to. “I was angry that you’d presume without asking me.”

“And are you still?” Hannibal’s gaze is intense on him.

“I don’t know.” His feelings are too complex to name. He expects something of Hannibal, or he would not be angry. Why, though, has he not ever become angry at Jack, who’s performed injustices worse than this on Will? There is only a particular hollowness when he thinks about the place where his anger should be. He is resigned to the ill behaviour of others. “I hold you to a higher standard than I hold other people, it would seem.”

“That is both flattering and of particular concern, since I err and am human,” Hannibal responds with dry humour. “Are you angry at Alana?”

“I suppose not.”

Hannibal hums. His forearms rest on the counter. “You draw people to you, Will. Those of us with professional egos to sate; myself, Alana, Jack Crawford. You should hold us all to the highest standard.”

Later when when Will is dressed and preparing to leave Hannibal hands him a thick stack of paper that has been tidily clipped at the top.

"I don't believe Alana is hoping to make scholarly inroads off your mind, but nevertheless I think you will find this an interesting read."

Will leafs through it. "Is this a paper?"

It's untitled but the introduction is clearly about him. He tries to keep from seeing individual words. 'Non-neurotypical' leaps out at him, of course, and so do 'savant' and 'unstable', and he flips the page down quickly. They are all familiar in a gut-clenching way.

"Unpublished, but yes," Hannibal says.

Will tucks it under his arm next to his laptop, unsure if he should thank Hannibal. "I'll read it."

"Good." Hannibal disappears from the doorway.

 

He only reads the first two pages. He sits in his truck outside the Windham police station and skims it as quickly as he can at first, but he finds himself lured in by the words. After two pages he sets it aside, feeling sick. Evidently, he thinks, his standards are high enough that this feels like a betrayal. It shouldn't; Alana has never hidden her professional interest. On the other hand, she was never shy about her personal interest, either, and Will has been naïve enough to think that one precludes the other.

When Alana calls him later in the day he’s driving from one house to the next, and he considers pretending not to have heard the phone. It’s cowardly, so he answers.

"Graham."

"Hi, Will. Where's Abigail? Did she find you?" Alana asks him without prelude.

"I put her on a bus back to the city." He glances over at the paper where she's written her name so unselfconsciously. Of course she should. They're her insights. And yet he is the person for whom these words on paper are the firing of neurons in his head and the release of chemicals into his bloodstream, and he feels de-humanised.

"She's not answering her phone," Alana says. "I went around to her apartment and she wasn't home, either."

Will realises that her line of questioning is sincere. There’s real concern in her voice. "The bus should have gotten in at four thirty in the morning. Maybe she's just sleeping. Why are you worried?"

"She's been acting out of character. I'm worried she'll do something rash." She sighs. "Just let me know if you hear from her?"

"Alright." He should leave it there. He has work to do and he and Alana haven’t really talked in almost a year; this would be a terrible time to break that streak. He prods the tender spot on the roof of his mouth where the coffee burned that morning. "Did you write a paper about me?"

She goes silent.

"Yes," she says after a moment. "I did. I didn't publish it and I don't intend to."

"Intent is not the same as action."

"I'm not going to publish it, Will. It's a confidential document—how did you find it?"

"Dr Lecter gave it to me,” says Will. Burns have nerve damage; the spot on his palate itself is numb but everything around it is sore. “I would imagine it was in amongst all the other documents you sent him."

"Dr Lecter? I haven't spoken to him in years. How do you know him?" She sounds genuinely puzzled and Will is thrown. He pulls over to the side of the road and turns the truck off.

"He told me he requested my file from you."

"I thought he wasn't practising anymore. Are you his patient?"

"I am," says Will, though he’s sure that’s not strictly true anymore. "He was the witness I was here to protect. He offered his services to me."

"I can see Jack’s hand in this." He can imagine the flash of temper in her eyes from her sharp tone. "Hannibal doesn't have patients, Will, he has subjects. He's excellent at—whatever he does, but it's not therapy. I don’t know what Jack told you about Hannibal, but you should stay away from him."

It's on the tip of Wild tongue to defend him, but of course it would be disingenuous to say Hannibal has been a perfectly ethical therapist. "He's done nothing worse than what you have," he says instead. “We’ve formed a personal relationship.”

"That was different," she says. "We were equals. You can never be Hannibal's equal. There are walls around him."

"Did you sleep with him when you were colleagues?" Will asks.

She lets out an explosive breath that could be laughter or frustration.

"For chrissakes, no. We were friends. I was under his mentorship when he started consulting on the Chesapeake Ripper case. He's done some things..." She trails off. "Has he ever lied to you?"

Will hesitates. Hannibal lied about requesting his file. He doesn’t want to admit this now to Alana, not quite embarrassed but developing that feeling in his gut. Some other piece of the puzzle slots into place.

"He's lied to me," Alana says when he doesn't answer. "I've spoken with his psychiatrist a couple of times; Hannibal has lied to her, as well. Outside the bound of doctor-patient confidentiality. If you are offended that I've written a paper on you... Hannibal can and will do much worse."

"Alana," he says haltingly, "what did he lie about?"

"I don't want to talk about it," she says. "Be careful around him, Will."

 

He hangs up feeling wrong-footed. He takes the main road back to the station with a mind to send someone else to do interviews, though he has no real jurisdiction here. He doesn’t have the stomach for it today. He wants to read over Noriko’s file, over and over, until it makes sense.

Inside the station Jack is waiting for him.

"I got your email," he says, standing from the desk. He looks sombre and tired.

"What email?"

"This one." Jack hands Will his phone. It's short; it says:

_I know who the Chesapeake Ripper is._

It's signed with his name and it was sent from his email address. Will shakes his head.

"I didn't send that," he says. "They let you come back?"

"I didn't ask. What does it mean, then?" Jack takes his phone back. He accepts without question the notion that someone could have accessed Will's email and sent him a message without Will knowing. This, Will thinks, is why I am not angry at him. "Who could have sent it?"

"Abigail," Will says abruptly, realising. "It must have been her."

"Hobbs? How—and why?" Jack narrows his eyes. "Is there something you're not telling me?"

"She came here."

"We should continue this conversation in private," Jack says, directing them toward a conference room. "What's this about? I know the two of you... communicate sometimes, but I thought that was all over with."

"Abigail came to see me," Will says. "I bought her a ticket back to Baltimore and left her at the bus depot last night. She must have looked through my emails while she was here and figured out what case we were working on."

Jack props himself up on the table. "And she thinks you know something."

"She thinks she knows something. Maybe she's trying to leave me clues. Abigail wants to be... like me." The words settle bitterly on his tongue. What a thing to want. "I think she didn’t leave, that she’s still here in Windham. I wouldn't put it past her to try to investigate on her own."

"Jesus, what a clusterfuck." Jack drops his head into his hands. “A civilian in this mix is just what we need.”

"I need to find her before she does something dangerous," Will says.

"Then do it." Jack stands up. "Get me your notes from yesterday. I'll go over them while I'm here."

"Jack," Will says, stopping him. "Do you have access to Dr Lecter's notes from his consultation on the Ripper case?"

"They're in the archive," says Jack.

"I'd like to take a look at them. They could have valuable insights."

"He told you about his involvement with the case?” Jack says, his eyebrows drawing down.

"He did."

"Then did he also tell you that his consultation was stricken from the record?"

"It was?" The revelation rattles him. Is this another puzzle piece, or did he misplace one? "Why didn't you tell me about it?"

"I didn't think it was relevant," says Jack.

"You didn't think it would come up between us?" Will asks incredulously. "I'm his patient and the Ripper is killing again right under his nose. It would be hard for us to bypass the subject."

"I guess I assumed the two of you would have a little more professional integrity," Jack says sharply. "You can't look at Dr Lecter's notes. He made a disastrous mistake, he was fired and his files were closed, and that's that."

 

He calls Abigail but she doesn't answer. He isn't expecting her to. He tries to think like her; where would she go if she thought she knew something about the case?

Will doesn't have to wait long. As he pulls himself up into the truck his phone chimes.

_found the bodies, he is eating them. going after him. tell Crawford... u know who it is. i would've told u if u weren't fucking him_

And then:

_now u r like me_

"Shit," Will says softly.

 

"It's Hannibal," he tells Jack over the phone. "She's going after him."

Jack curses roundly. "Fuck. Fucking hell. Is it him, Will? The Ripper?"

"I--" he hesitates. "I don't know. Yes.” Hannibal’s hands around Singer’s neck. His palm over Will’s mouth while they were fucking. “I have to go after her. Get officers to Dr Lecter's house."

"Where are you going?"

His teeth in Will’s shoulder. A scalpel between his fingers.

"The shop." He hangs up and executes a messy three point turn.

 

The lights are out in the shop. There's no sign of life. He could be wrong, but he doesn't think he is—whatever Abigail found was at the house, which means she came here to find Hannibal. The dark of the interior behind the windows is sinister. His nerves are jangling.

He breaks the glass with the butt of his pistol and unlocks the door from the inside, in his haste slicing open his palm. He curses and curls his fingers around the shallow cut. It's his dominant hand; he switches the pistol to his left as he enters.

"Abigail," he calls softly. There's no answer. He tries the lights but they don't come on. Hannibal could have flipped the breaker.

He has no flashlight but he can see a bit in the late afternoon light. Light is not a friend in an ambush, though. Anyone could see him, too, silhouetted against the windows.

He moves quickly across the shop. The back room door has been closed, but there's no lock. In the corner of his eye he can see the radiant cracks in the window haloing that damned spot of blood, which has dried to an almost black. There's something on the counter; a smear of fresh blood, atop it a leaf of crisp white paper. The tie pin Hannibal gave him rests in the middle, and it pricks him like an admonishment when he picks it up. Abigail must have taken it from the pocket of his coat.

"Abigail!" He raises his voice. It's useless, though, and he knows it. Hannibal has her already.

He pushes through the door. Something moves in the dark and he shoots before he can fully make out the shape of it. In the flare from the muzzle of his gun he sees bouquets burst like kegs of gunpowder, raining down bits of petal and leaf. He can't tell if he hit anything. His left hand is a poor shot.

He fires three times before Hannibal knocks the gun out of his hand to the floor and twists his wrist up behind his back in a parody of their position earlier that day. Hannibal's grip on him is strong but he could escape—then he feels the barrel of Hannibal's weapon in the small of his back, and he stills.

"Will," Hannibal murmurs. "I knew you would come for her yourself. You can't trust anyone else, can you?"

"I was supposed to be able to trust you," Will hisses. The words are half-hearted, though. Hannibal has fallen into place in his mind and he knows like he knows the Chesapeake Ripper; it is all so disappointingly rote, all of a sudden. And then Hannibal presses close.

"Come quietly and I'll bring you to her." He murmurs. His cock presses into the swell of Will’s ass, half hard.

Will’s breath catches.

"This excites you," Hannibal says. It’s not a question.

Will shudders. His cock jumps as Hannibal runs his palm over the groove of his hip. He could give Hannibal what he wants, let him get Will off at gunpoint, and the thought quickens his pulse. For a moment he lets himself think that he could, and the thought sings through him like a deeply satisfying note. Hannibal’s palm is flat and warm against him.

But Will isn’t ready to step over the precipice.

"Azalea," he rasps, and Hannibal withdraws, leaving the places where he touched cold.

"Close your eyes," he says. His tone gives nothing away. "I'm going to turn on the lights."

When Will opens his eyes again the emergency lights are on, a dull, ominous red. Hannibal directs him into the walk-in cooler.

"On the floor," he says. "Lift up the ring."

It's a door leading down into a black room. Will swings it back to rest on its hinges. They descend the stairs with only the glow from above to guide them. Neither of them speak.

At the bottom of the stairs Hannibal turns on the light. It's only a single bulb hanging from a cord. The air down here is dank and cold. Freezers line one wall but the small room is otherwise empty. Abigail sits against one of the freezers, her arms tied behind her back and a gag over her mouth. There’s blood in her hair but she’s conscious, and her eyes widen when she sees them. She struggles to her feet, her gaze flicking between them.

"Stay where you are," Hannibal says, and she freezes.

Will seizes the distraction as an opportunity.

With one hand he grabs the barrel of the gun where it presses into him and twists it sharply up as he spins, aiming for Hannibal's face. Hannibal moves with unexpected speed away from him, but Will is faster; he gets a lucky hit in and slams his fist into Hannibal's chest. He wrests the gun away. Hannibal gasps for breath, staggering back toward the freezer.

But his movements are no accident; before Will can level the gun Hannibal has Abigail in his grip. He holds a scalpel against her throat where her scarf has fallen away, right alongside her scar. A very small, frightened shriek emerges from her as Will raises the gun.

"Let it go, Will," Hannibal says. He's breathing heavily and his hair sticks to his face in sweaty strands. Will, in contrast, feels strangely calm. He is under the tide now, where everything is more vivid, where the only question is how long he can hold his breath before he has to surface or drown. "Put the gun down and kick it over. If you don't cooperate I will kill her."

"What are you going to do to us?" Will doesn't lower the gun.

"I don't want to do anything to her. But to you?" His eyes glitter. "I’d like to do plenty to you. Come with me and you will find out."

"Where?"

"Anywhere.”

Will shakes his head, whether in protest or disbelief he doesn’t know.

“All that remains for you here is a vocation you cannot stand and people you cannot trust. Is that what you want?" Hannibal’s tone is even and easy. “You might not trust me, Will, but you know me.”

"Why me? Why not just let Abigail and I go?" He knows why, of course, but he's stalling. There's a chance Jack will have sent a second squad car in his wake.

"Is it flattery you want? To know how I was taken in by you?" Hannibal smiles and digs the blade into Abigail's skin. She whimpers. A drop of blood wells up at the point of contact. "Put the gun down."

Will puts the gun down and kicks it over.

"Thank you. Your young friend hasn't been so cooperative—" Hannibal jerks Abigail's elbow and her arms come free of their bonds, the rope falling to the floor. "What a bad girl. Of course I'll have to kill her now."

It happens so fast that Will barely has time to breathe. He lunges for the light switch before Hannibal has finished his sentence; Abigail screams through the gag. Will scrambles toward the noise. The gun goes off once; twice; and then somebody slams into him. It's Abigail.

"Go, go!" she says breathlessly. He grabs her arm and they fumble toward the staircase. There's no sound of pursuit at first—and then footsteps on the stairs behind them.

They burst through the trap door into the cooler. They run like the devil himself is on their tail, out into the storefront where the sun has set everything alight with a rich golden fire and their feet falter. Will strains his eyes against the light. Dark figures cluster at the window. The front door swings open and someone comes into focus.

"Will, get down!" Somebody yells.

Pain blossoms in Will's side. He doesn’t even hear the shot. He crumples and the pendulum swings, the room blurs.

 

\--

 

“Were you having an affair with Noriko Kurosawa?”

“No.”

“Did you kill her daughter?”

“Of course not. Abe killed her.”

“Why?”

No answer. And then: “He didn’t approve of our friendship.”

“Vehemently, I see.”

“Yes.”

“Was it what you fed her?”

No answer.

“Was it, Dr Lecter?”

Hannibal leans across the table. “You are only hurting yourself.”

“Distance,” Will warns, and Hannibal straightens, a flicker of disappointment in his eyes.

“Any further questions, Agent Graham?”

“Why did you kill Noriko? She had no reason not to keep your secret.”

“She wielded my trust in her like a knife to send me after her husband. Like a dog.” Hannibal makes a miniscule motion with his shoulders. “It was necessary to make an example of her. Ideas like that are… contagious.”

“There are others.” Will can’t lift his eyes from Hannibal.

He looks so ordinary. He sits across from Will in an orange jumpsuit, his hair in disarray, his hands cuffed to the table, and yet Will is hypnotized by him. God, he still wants to fuck Hannibal.

He has a list of questions vetted by Hannibal’s lawyer, who is watching from the other room. Will is not here in an official capacity; he is allowed to record the conversations for his own therapy, but they are not admissible in court. Hannibal is not required to answer anything he asks.

The half-healed bullet hole in his side aches. It will scar in a sunburst pattern of ridged and pitted flesh. Will grits his teeth.

“Why didn’t you kill me?”

Hannibal folds his hands together. To others he might look like only a ghost of his former self; to Will he is stripped down to his bones, his essence, his mask gone. He has only the look in his eyes now, and it is pure.

“Off the record,” he offers. Will reaches over and switches off the microphone. Hannibal sits upright, his hands folded. “You see, Will, I need to own you fully. I could not settle for the lesser pleasure of killing you. Do you understand what it is like to own someone?”

Will nods. “I do.”

Hannibal’s hand in his hair. His breath on Will’s back. The intimacy of his house at dawn.

“Of course you do.” Hannibal glances casually at the two-sided mirror. “Did you know Jack asked me to consult on a case recently?”

“Jack is a fool.” Will is not surprised. He closes his file and pockets the microphone. His hands are no longer steady.

“No further questions,” he says. “Thank you for your time, Dr Lecter.”

 


End file.
